The Slayer and His Vampire
by Taaroko
Summary: The basic role reversal premise. Angel is the Slayer, Buffy is the vampire with a soul. The backgrounds of most other main characters will remain as they were in canon. T for violence. Also, definitely not limited to these two genres. Enjoy and review!
1. Prelude 1221

Okay, I wasn't going to start this fic until after I'd at least finished "Worlds Apart", since the last thing I need is a *third* gigantic story to divide my free time over, but my slave driver of a muse had other ideas. There I was, trying to write the next episode of "Season 9", when she popped up and started poking me with ideas for this one. She will be dealt with, I assure you.

Anyway, now that my highly dysfunctional relationship with my muse has been sufficiently addressed, about the story behind the story. It was originally going to be a co-authored project with **Blooming Violets**, but that was months ago when she had time to work on it with me. So, even though I'm going on without her, it seems only fitting to dedicate it to her, since the premise was her idea and half of the brainstorming/outlining came from her.

Now an introduction to the story itself. It's pretty much what the summary said it is. Buffy is the vampire, while Angel (not his given name, incidentally-that would be Liam, just like in canon) is the Slayer. If you're in this for the romance, I think it only fair to warn you that it's going to be a long time coming. A _long time_. (Even longer, since this story gets a much lower priority than "Season 9" and "Worlds Apart" and I do not plan to update it until the latter of those two is complete.)

Disclaimer: The characters still belong to Joss. Last time I checked, I'm not him.

Oh, and Tahn, the imaginary Jewel Staite character from "Season 9" is also in this chapter.

* * *

April 1753

The rosy tinge on her cheeks and dancing sparkle in her green eyes attested to how much Elizabeth had enjoyed the ball, and her escort (and fiancé), whose father had hosted the event in his manor, was quick to notice these signs and take credit for them. As the many guests made their way out, eventually they were among the only ones left. On a whim, as the weather was so clear and the stars were out in full force, Elizabeth decided she would rather walk the mile back to her father's estate than take the carriage, and Parker gallantly offered to accompany her. Her friends would never have dreamed of doing such a preposterous thing as _walking_ home, but she was rather more adventurous than most of them.

As they passed through the high gates, Elizabeth looked adoringly up at her fiancé and thought herself the luckiest woman in England. Beside her walked the twenty-four-year-old eldest son of Lord Edmund Abrams, one of the wealthier nobles of the area—much wealthier than her father, Lord Henry Somers, at any rate. Parker would inherit both estate and title when his father died, and as his wife, Elizabeth would never want for anything. He was handsome, smiled easily, and paid attention to her even when she let herself get carried away, for the wild imagination of her childhood had yet to be tamed, though she was now eighteen. She could not tell if Parker loved her, but her own affections convinced her that if he did not now, he would come to in time.

They walked in companionable silence for some minutes, Elizabeth letting Parker focus on their path as she cast her gaze heavenward instead. The stars were truly glorious this cloudless night. She fancied that they winked cheerily with hidden promise, and she smiled back at them. A slight chill breeze made her shiver, and she moved closer to Parker, coiling her arm a little more snugly around his.

[o]

The duet of their beating hearts was a siren song, the smell of their warm, living blood intoxicating to the old vampire who watched his prey draw nearer. All they needed was a little fear, and his feast would be perfect. Six centuries of this on a nightly basis was starting to leave him with a craving for grander evils, but there was just something about the simple beauty of the hunt that never dulled over time. And, after all, the demon whose body had once belonged to one Heinrich Joseph Nest, but had long since been known simply as the Master, still had an eternity ahead of him, and that was plenty of time to wreak whatever havoc on the world he saw fit.

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself this evening," said the young man. His voice was louder than the heartbeats, and the Master's eye twitched irritably at the interruption of their symphony.

"It was a wonderful ball," the girl replied warmly.

"Then there shall be many more like it," the man—well, boy, really—promised.

"Ah, young love," the Master remarked. As they were only twenty paces away by now, they heard him and paused. He moved towards them out of the shadows of the trees and into the light of a nearly full moon. The girl's smile faltered and both heartbeats quickened, causing a corner of the vampire's mouth to quirk up. Not fear yet; only uncertainty. It was too dark for them to see how the demon was beginning to permanently overcome his human appearance. They could not see how his eyes were soulless; their irises the deep, golden yellow of a predator, nor how his teeth were far too sharp to be human.

[o]

Elizabeth frowned at the shadowed figure before them on the road. Who could he be, to be traveling this road alone, at this hour? A robber, perhaps? The idea frightened her a little, until she reminded herself that even if that were the case, the only things of value they carried at present were her jewelry and Parker's gold pocket watch.

"Good evening, sir," said Parker pleasantly. In response, the man laughed. For some reason, the sound caused goose bumps to rise all over Elizabeth's arms. The way he kept moving nearer, almost as if he were _prowling_ towards them, did nothing to help this.

"Oh, yes, it's about to be. Well, for me, that is," he said lightly.

"But we shall be less fortunate?" asked Parker, an edge of sarcastic incredulity marring his polite tone.

"I should imagine so," said the man dryly. "Unless you take this for the face of good fortune." A split-second later, Elizabeth's voice joined her fiancé's in a scream of terror. By the silver light of the moon, they had seen the face of the man—no, surely he was not one—transform. His eyes were now unmistakably blood red in color, and his forehead and nose had creased, becoming bestial and ugly. At their cries, he grinned, revealing a row of wickedly pointed fangs.

Before Elizabeth had even spent a lungful of breath on her scream, she felt Parker tear his arm from her tightened grasp. Still yelling, he fled back up the road in the direction of his family's manor, leaving her at the mercy of this demon. It was strange, but in that moment, her fear was forgotten—erased by the sting of Parker's abandonment, of his cowardly betrayal. The perfect image she had created of the man who was to be her husband shattered into a thousand pieces, and all she could feel was pain from where its jagged splinters had pierced her heart.

"And so, Chivalry dies," the Master observed, sounding both amused and disappointed. "Pity. I'd hardly even consider you a meal. But you'll do, for now." Elizabeth's small hands balled themselves into fists. Her fear had still not returned. When the demon came at her with a low growl, fangs bared, she lashed out; punching and kicking every bit of him she could reach.

Though her efforts amounted to little more than a mild hindrance to the Master, they did give him pause. It had been decades since any victim had fought back, and it had certainly never been attempted by such a dainty slip of a girl as this one.

"You're feisty for a nobleman's daughter," he said with a chuckle as angry tears poured from Elizabeth's eyes and her fists continued to drum against his chest. "I think I'll keep you."

"Unhand me, demon! I'm no one's to be kept," she managed in between blows. She could barely feel her fists after so many impacts with his cold, very solid chest, but she continued raining down blows all the same, because her legs didn't seem to be paying attention to her growing desire to run.

"You will be," he replied, looking her directly in the eyes. A chill that had nothing to do with the cool night air swept through her. Faster than blinking, he had caught both of her wrists in one marble-white hand. She writhed desperately against his grip, but she could not break free. What was more, her fear had returned, and it had brought reinforcements. Why couldn't this be a nightmare? Her waking world was supposed to be balls and books and parties and etiquette, with her wedding only a month off—not this. She thought of her father, mother, and sister. Dawn, oh, little Dawnie…and they had fought that afternoon before she left for the ball. She thought of her friends, her home, Parker…no, only betrayal and hurt lay down that mental path now.

All of these thoughts were obliterated then from Elizabeth's mind by the pain suddenly piercing the side of her neck as the Master sank his fangs beneath her skin and began to drain her blood. Her strength to resist waned to nonexistence, and she would have fallen to the ground had it not been for his death hold on her. She couldn't see or hear; murky shapes and indistinct sounds were blocking her senses. So much as forming thought became a struggle as her world grew steadily colder and darker. She couldn't even feel pain anymore, though she wasn't sure she had a body with which to feel it anyway.

Elizabeth neither knew, understood, nor cared why, but she became aware of something being pressed against her mouth, and then a liquid passing her lips. It was the only thing any of her senses were responding to anymore, the only thing holding her from the empty black void trying to drown her. She swallowed hungrily again and again; too busy drinking at first to realize that something was very, very wrong. But by the time she did and stopped, it was too late. The black void surrounding her had materialized into a monstrous creature, more horrible even than the demon that had attacked her. The longer she looked at it in terror, the more it came to resemble her. Meanwhile, a deafening silence fell as the sound that had always been present but which she had often taken for granted stopped. Her heart had ceased to beat. The last thing she saw in the wake of the horrid silence was the fanged leer of the thing that had stolen her face, and then everything went black.

[o]

When their eldest daughter did not return from the ball, Lord and Lady Somers naturally assumed that she had been too weary to come home, for it wouldn't have been the first time. As they had previously done on such occasions, an hour after sunrise, the carriage was sent to Lord Abrams' estate to collect her. The coachmen were very fond of Elizabeth, for she was always polite and did not think it beneath her to converse with them. When they found her crumpled, lifeless form lying on the side of the road halfway between the two manors, therefore, they were quite devastated, but dutifully brought her back to the Somers estate, unable to leave her lying there as if she had been discarded.

At the sight of her daughter's body, Lady Joyce Somers collapsed into hysterical sobs that did not stop until her voice was ragged and hoarse. Elizabeth's twelve-year-old sister, Dawn, on the other hand, retreated to her chambers and would not speak to anyone. Lord Somers managed to keep a level head, if only for the sake of his wife and youngest daughter. He ordered an investigation on his Lizzie's murder, and a quiet funeral was held in the afternoon. Apart from the Abrams family, only a handful of other close friends were present.

Dawn looked up from the spot where her sister had been buried to see through her tears that Parker seemed curiously uncomfortable in his mourning, and she suddenly found herself blaming him for the death of her sister. He was her fiancé. He was supposed to protect and provide for her, but now he was here while she was in the ground. Dawn lingered at the grave after her parents and smotheringly consoling friends had gone, wanting to be alone with her sister.

"I'm sorry for what I said yesterday," she said in a quiet, cracked voice. "You're a wonderful sister. And friend. I love you, and I miss you. I promise I'll be strong for Mother and Father. Goodbye, Lizzie." She bent down and ran a hand gently over the dark, damp earth of the grave before quietly walking back to the manor, her cheeks streaked with tears but her head held bravely high.

[o]

June 1992

"Why isn't Dad 'ere yet?" Liam asked his mother with a slight pout.

Julia Gallagher looked down at her eleven-year-old son and smiled. The boy absolutely idolized his father and loved spending time with him, but Brian did have a rather demanding job. He could normally get away from work in time for their weekly family outing, but his boss, Seamus Roarke, had been less accommodating than usual this week. And so it was that Julia found herself shepherding her three children to their usual picnic spot overlooking Galway Bay that evening without her husband.

Kathy and the twins, Faith and Liam, had all gotten their dark hair and eyes from Julia, but Faith was the only one who resembled her beyond that. She was her mother in miniature, right down to the Boston accent that Julia hadn't lost even after living in Ireland for thirteen years. Liam and Kathy, on the other hand, had both inherited their father's features, if not his red hair and gray eyes. Despite being surrounded by four brunettes, Brian often joked that he wouldn't be the only ginger in the family forever.

Faith, the elder twin by thirteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds, was a wild and endlessly energetic child. As much as she and Liam fought, they were nearly inseparable. Liam often followed her lead, which tended to result in mischief and broken family heirlooms, but while she was like a firecracker on legs, he was slightly more subdued. As an exceptionally bright and inquisitive boy, he sometimes preferred reading or drawing to going exploring with Faith and their best friend, Allen. Kathy, the youngest by six years and two months, was shy and sweet. She always clung tightly to either her big brother or her mother and was terrified of starting primary school when the summer ended, because neither of them would be able to come with her.

The family, minus Brian, arrived a little later than they normally did at their destination on the coast. Liam and Faith had gotten into one of their frequent fights, and it had taken Julia a while to get them settled down again, only for the five-year-old Kathy to start crying because one of her favorite toys had been damaged during their tussle.

"Yeah, when's Dad coming?" asked Faith, also pouting.

"I don't know, sweetheart," Julia sighed. "He had to work late." Hopefully this new pattern of later hours at work was a sign that Brian was going to get his long-awaited promotion, but Julia wasn't sure she wanted her husband to be promoted if it meant he would have to keep cutting back on family time. He had already long since fulfilled the promise he made to her when they were dating and she was still a poor study abroad student from Massachusetts. They had a beautiful home that they had recently succeeded in completely paying off, they were debt-free, and they would be able to support their children through college. There was nothing else Julia wanted.

Faith recovered from the disappointment of her dad's absence almost immediately and ran off to the water's edge to look for shells. Kathy followed her happily, but Liam stayed where he was, feeling thoroughly grumpy. Every week, he looked forward to playing tag and rugby with his dad, and now, because of stupid work, he wouldn't get to tonight. He felt his mom ruffle his thick, spiky hair affectionately and scowled.

"Your dad will make it up to you, honey," she said. "I promise."

"'_E _promised 'e'd never miss family night," said Liam indignantly, squirming out of her reach. "'Ow's 'e goin' to make up fer it?"

"He will," she repeated, her tone ominous. "Or else." She smiled again. "Now, go play with your sisters."

"Okay," he said, and grudgingly got up and ran to join Faith and Kathy.

In spite of Liam's determination to have a miserable time without his dad there, he had a lot of fun on the beach with his sisters. They hunted for shells and interestingly shaped rocks, pretending that they were pirates searching for treasure. Not long after sunset, they heard their mom calling them back for dinner.

"Race you!" said Faith, but she had already started to sprint back, sending up grainy clouds of sand in her wake. Liam was determined to beat her, but he hadn't gone far when Kathy called out to him.

"Liam, wait fer me!" she cried, panting with the effort to keep up with her siblings. Reluctantly, Liam stopped and let Kathy catch up.

"Come on," he said. "I'll give ye a piggy-back ride." He bent down so that she could clamber up onto his back. Once she was securely in place with her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his neck, he continued toward the picnic site, which Faith had already reached.

"Who's that?" asked Kathy suddenly, her grip tightening slightly with one arm as she pointed with the other. Liam squinted through the gathering darkness and saw two people heading towards their destination, a man and a woman. They were moving very quickly. Too quickly. Liam stopped to watch, starting to feel uneasy. Kathy's grip continued to tighten to the point that it was almost painful. No sooner had the strangers reached the place where their mother and sister were than two screams cut the air like a knife.

[o]

Brian Patrick Gallagher did get the promotion, but the long-overdue advancement was hollow and meaningless to him. All he could think was that if only he hadn't been at the office so late that night, he would have been with his family where he was supposed to be, and then he would have been able to protect them. But he hadn't been there. He had been at work, where his promotion was followed fifteen minutes later by the news that the brutally mauled bodies of his wife and eldest daughter had been discovered at the beach, and that he would need to go to the police station to answer questions and retrieve his son and daughter.

Almost immediately after the funeral, Brian chose to accept the optional transfer that came with the promotion. Ireland reminded him too much of his beautiful Julia and the happy times they had shared there with their children. And so, before the month was out, he, Liam, and Kathy found themselves five thousand miles from the country they'd spent their entire lives, living in Los Angeles, California.

Brian was too consumed by his grief and his guilt to realize what this transition was doing to his children. He didn't know that Liam blamed himself just as much as he did, or that he had stopped laughing and smiling. He didn't know that Kathy had nightmares and barely spoke for months. When school started, he didn't know that Liam was picked on for his accent, or that he was getting into fights as a result. He didn't know that neither Liam nor Kathy made any new friends in school, or that Kathy slept in Liam's room every night.

Their family was broken, and none of them knew how to put the remaining pieces back together.

[o]

October 1996

Perched atop a two-story building like a statue, her posture relaxed and meditative, was a petite blonde woman. The very same petite blonde woman, in fact, who in a different time and place had fought for her life against a far stronger opponent. But Elizabeth Somers was long dead, and the woman simply went by Buffy now. Not that she knew many people well enough for it to matter what she went by.

How long she had been crouching on that roof was anyone's guess, and as the minutes dragged on, she remained perfectly motionless. A terrified scream shattered the peaceful stillness of the night, and her eyes opened. She waited. Another moment passed in a silence broken only by the distant sounds of traffic, before the scream came again. By the time the second cry had died on the air, Buffy had gone from the roof to the sidewalk next to the building. She hesitated, not sure she was really going to do this, but with the third scream, she made up her mind. Pausing only to reach up and rip a short branch from one of the manicured urban landscaping trees, she set off at a sprint towards the alley that was the source of the screams.

[o]

Her own petrified screams ringing in her ears as she ran for her life, Winifred "Fred" Burkle found herself wondering what exactly she had done to land herself in this situation. She had walked home this way from every single shift at the ER for the past three years, and the only thing she'd ever had to contend with had been a bad-tempered poodle owned by the old lady who lived next door. What she wouldn't give for ten of those stupid dogs to be chasing her now instead of the nightmarish reality.

Before she realized where her feet had taken her, she had run out of back alley, and was very abruptly impeded by a solid brick wall. With nowhere else to go, Fred turned to face her inhuman pursuer, and yet another scream tore from her throat. She didn't have time to do anything else before his hands had slammed her shoulders painfully against the wall and his razor sharp fangs were headed straight for her carotid artery. There had to be something wrong with her. Why would anyone be thinking in medical jargon at a time like this?

Buffy could smell the rich, metallic scent of blood hit the air just as Fred's screams changed from terrified to agonized. She could see them now, and the sight lent her a burst of adrenaline as she rushed toward them. Without a second thought, she barreled into the vampire, knocking him away from Fred, who let out something between a gasp and a sob, her hand immediately moving to press tightly against the profusely bleeding wound. She opened her eyes to try and find out how she wasn't dead, while instinctively moving in the opposite direction of her attacker.

Her eyes widened when they landed on the small blonde woman who was standing over the clearly inhuman man and leaning down to seize him by the front of his shirt. She watched in astonishment as this woman, who was at least half a head shorter than her and almost as thin, picked up her much larger attacker with ease and tossed him against the brick wall. Attempting to get back to her feet, but feeling rather sluggish and uncoordinated from blood loss, Fred fell back to the ground and continued to watch as the man stood and dove after her rescuer.

Assuming her long-practiced defensive stance, Buffy avoided his punch and ducked down, slamming her own fist into his stomach before standing and driving her knee hard into the same spot, then stepped back and kicked him hard in the chest, sending him crashing into a dumpster. It seemed that she had underestimated the young vampire though, for in spite of her attacks, he recovered rather quickly and aimed another punch at her. This time she didn't dodge quickly enough, and his fist connected with her face. Instead of letting her fall back, he grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her against the wall.

Buffy couldn't help the low growl that escaped her throat as she pulled herself up, only to find that her opponent had taken advantage of her temporary incapacitation to go after the woman again. Fred stared up at him and let out a squeak of fright as he drew closer, but it seemed that all of her efforts were going into not passing out. Why, thought Buffy irritably, hadn't she run away while they were fighting? Had common sense been sucked out along with blood?

"Hey!" she snarled, "We weren't finished." Her mounting irritation, combined with the scent of blood now heavy on the air, caused her face to change as she stalked towards them once again. The vampire paused before he reached Fred and turned. He barely caught a glimpse of a pair of gleaming yellow eyes before he was once again being thrown to the grimy pavement. Her back to Fred, Buffy went after him, pulling the makeshift stake from her back pocket. He stood up and stared at her, and, with a loud hiss, she waited for him to make a move.

"What are you doing?" he asked incredulously, the words distorted slightly as he spoke around elongated fangs. "Why are you fighting me? If you wanted me to share the meal, all you had to do was ask! Come! We can feast together!"

Buffy only rolled her eyes and shook her head, not dropping her guard. "I don't think so."

The vampire didn't have a chance to respond before she closed in. Her fist flew so quickly and unexpectedly that he had no chance to block or avoid it. A loud crack echoed down the alley and Buffy watched as he fell back, a loud, painful howl falling from his lips as he cradled his broken jaw, his eyes watering. Before he could push past the pain, Buffy rammed the jagged end of the tree branch into his chest, then ripped it back out. His eyes snapped open in shock as he looked down at what she had done. The string of curses flowing from his mouth was abruptly cut off when he disintegrated into a cloud of dust.

Fred watched blankly as Buffy brushed a considerable amount of this dust off her clothes. Having gotten as much of it off as she could, Buffy turned. She felt an unmistakable twinge of guilt as she looked Fred's frightened and horrified expression. It was one she was very familiar with. She sighed. "Are you okay?" she asked. Stepping closer, she swept a critical glance over Fred and came to a fairly obvious conclusion. "You've lost a lot of blood. You'll need to get to a hospital."

As she took another step towards her, extending a hand, the sound of Fred's heartbeat suddenly stepped up to its previously racing pace and reverberated maddeningly in Buffy's ears, and she began to scoot frantically away. "It's okay, I won't hurt you," Buffy assured her as gently as she could.

"Y-y-you're like him! A-a freak! A m-monster!" Fred shrieked in a slight Texan twang, fighting her dizziness to get back to her feet as quickly as she could. "Don't come any closer! Get away from me!"

Buffy took an automatic step backward as if she had been slapped. She remained motionless as Fred finally found her footing and backed unsteadily out of the alley. "Stay away from me!" she cried again, before running around the corner and disappearing from view, her purse swinging wildly on her arm and a hand still pressed tightly over her wound.

Buffy was, of course, used to reactions like this, but she still felt a small twinge of hurt as she watched her run away. A slight breeze stirred the scent of spilled blood, which was still thick upon the air and Buffy couldn't stop herself from inhaling slowly and deeply. Fresh. Warm. Delicious. She licked her lips. Shaking her head to clear it of the intoxicating scent, Buffy ran her tongue once over her pearly white fangs before forcing her face to change back to its human disguise. Letting out the unneeded breath in another sigh, she walked slowly out of the alley, where she turned and headed deliberately in the opposite direction of the fleeing woman.

[o]

At the age of fifteen, Liam was a pale, skinny boy whose Irish accent had almost completely vanished after nearly five years in the United States and whose hands and feet were slightly too large for his body—something he hoped was indicative of an impending growth spurt, like with little puppies that have big paws and then end up being enormous dogs. He was pale because he spent most of his free time in shadowy corners of the public library, his nose buried in a book, and he was skinny because he, like most boys his age, seemed to have a black hole for a stomach, so that no matter how much he ate, it had no effect whatsoever on his physique.

Despite his slightly awkward adolescent proportions and chronic bookworm tendencies, there was no denying that Liam looked cool; almost always dressed in black and wearing an expression that seemed to have frozen in the attitude of The Thinker—but he was still given a wide berth by most of his classmates. He didn't get in fights anymore, but the other students seemed to find him dangerous. Even seniors on the football team didn't pick on him like they did the other underclassmen. The teachers, on the other hand, absolutely adored the quiet, dark boy who sat in the back of their classrooms and whose brooding mask hid a brilliant and voracious mind.

[o]

The first Wednesday of the month began like any other day. Liam woke up to find Kathy curled up on the other side of his bed. Their father had already left for work when they came downstairs and ate Pop-Tarts for breakfast. Liam walked Kathy to school, hugged her goodbye, and made his way to Hemery. As usual, he arrived early and spent the time before class in the library. In class, he took careful notes in an easy, calligraphic script that his English teacher would have killed for, and, when the final bell sounded, he walked out and sat on the front steps of the school with his sketchbook open on his lap.

"Liam Gallagher?"

Liam looked up to find a short, pudgy, middle-aged man in a stuffy-looking suit standing over him, his expression gravely serious. "What?" he asked, not even attempting to sound polite. Who was this guy, and how did he know his name?

"I need to speak with you."

"You sure you're not looking for the guy from Oasis?" said Liam dully. He had already endured a fair amount of teasing for the name he shared with the famous British singer, and he was thoroughly sick of it. Why the man couldn't just go by his given name, William, he had no idea.

"There isn't much time," said the stuffy-suited man, ignoring Liam's comment. "You must come with me. Your destiny awaits."

"My _destiny_?" Liam repeated with a snort of skepticism.

"Yes. You are the Chosen One. You alone can stop them."

"Chosen One?" said Liam, putting his sketchbook back in his bag and getting to his feet, preparing to put some distance between himself and this nutcase. "Stop who?" he asked, almost in spite of himself.

"The vampires," said the man.

Liam's eyes widened, then narrowed. In his mind, he saw what had haunted him every day since that summer night years ago. Glinting yellow eyes, impossibly sharp teeth, his mother's and sister's blood…so much blood. He remembered the police telling him and Kathy that they were in shock, not thinking clearly; that it was impossible that horror story monsters were responsible for what had happened. Over the years, he had convinced himself that they were right. Vampires weren't real. But now, here this man was, telling him otherwise.

Though very wary of the middle-aged stranger—who later introduced himself as Merrick, his new "Watcher", whatever that meant—Liam ultimately agreed to meet him at a local cemetery around midnight. Before they parted, Merrick gave him a wickedly sharp wooden stake, which he told him he would need that night.

[o]

"Ah, there's my little blueberry muffin!" cried Lorne warmly, his arms spread wide in welcome. Though Buffy wouldn't quite consider the eccentric Pylean a friend, he came a great deal closer to it than anyone else had since she'd had a pulse. They were both outcasts, demons, generally rooting for the side of good, and each found the other fascinating. As a result, going to Caritas had become a nightly ritual for Buffy ever since it opened a few months before.

"Hey, Lorne," she said, allowing him to hug her, but, as usual, not reciprocating.

"Aw, sweetie, what's wrong?" he asked in his unnervingly perceptive way once he had released her from the hug.

"Nothing I can't handle," said Buffy evasively. "Need me behind the bar tonight?"

"No," he said. "Where I need you is in the spotlight. It's a crime to keep those gorgeous eighteenth century pipes of yours to yourself."

"Lorne."

"I know, I know," he sighed dramatically. "Party pooper. But come on, how often am I gonna have the chance to read a vampire with a soul?"

"Lorne."

"You don't exactly come a dime a dozen. You're cheating me out of the opportunity of a lifetime, here."

"_Lorne_."

"Oh, fine, go mix drinks, then. Stubborn mook."

Buffy ducked her head so he wouldn't see her smirking, then flitted around the bar to start taking orders. Every single time she had come to Caritas, Lorne attempted to guilt her into singing for him, but she refused. She wasn't interested in learning about her future, because she couldn't see how it would be any different from her present—unless it was worse, and if that were the case, then she was even_ less_ curious about it.

She spent a couple of hours mixing every type of drink imaginable, which she found ironic, given that she was technically still eighteen. A few of the singers were quite good. Others were dreadful. Finally, when Buffy was starting to think about going home, Tahn (a bubbly, lilac-skinned demon with slit-pupiled eyes, very sharp eyeteeth, and a long tail, who frequented the bar solely for its karaoke machine) stepped up to the mike. Tahn was by no means the best singer to test her mettle at Caritas, but she was still Buffy's favorite. It was impossible not to like her for her cheerful enthusiasm and dazzlingly bright smile. Buffy suspected that there may also have been something supernatural about the demon girl's voice, because the sound was like a tonic to her heavily burdened soul. Before she knew it, she was humming along, just in time for Lorne to drop by the bar for his hourly sea breeze.

"Ever considered swinging through the cemetery on your way back to that lonely little apartment of yours?" he asked casually.

"What, for the company?" Buffy snorted. "No."

"Well, you might wanna think about making that detour tonight," he said with a wink. "You never know what you could find."

"But you do, I take it," said Buffy, mentally kicking herself for getting so carried away with Tahn's singing.

"Of course," said Lorne sweetly, "but it wouldn't be any fun if I spoiled the surprise."

"Naturally," Buffy grumbled.

[o]

Despite her determination not to give Lorne the satisfaction of following his advice, Buffy's curiosity got the better of her, and she did indeed find herself veering into the cemetery on the way home that night. At the distant sound of heartbeats, she realized that there were humans there. Two of them. Wondering if they were what Lorne's vague hints had been about, she crept in the direction of the heartbeats with all the acquired stealth of two and a half centuries.

The first heartbeat belonged to a short, rotund man who was most likely in his fifties. For some reason, he seemed to be hiding behind a tree, but not in a way to suggest that he was being pursued. Buffy looked at him in bemusement, then edged around to another tree and peered around it. There, walking among the headstones, was a teenage boy. He was dark-haired, thin, and about half a head taller than her. When he turned, the moonlight lit his features. Though there was well-concealed pain and grief in his dark eyes and Buffy had the impression that he rarely smiled, there was an innocent, childlike beauty about him that took her aback. He was almost angelic.

Before Buffy could get her thoughts back in order, she realized that the old man and the beautiful boy weren't the only ones in the cemetery apart from herself. Another vampire, so obviously a fledgling that she nearly rolled her eyes, was there as well, and he was headed straight for the teenager. Had Lorne sent her here to protect him? She suddenly wished that she had sung for him months ago.

Though Buffy fully intended to kill the fledgling—slowly and painfully, if possible—for attacking the boy, she soon realized, to her complete shock, that her interference was quite unnecessary. She hadn't seen anyone fight like that since…but no. He couldn't be. It was absurd, wasn't it?

[o]

When Liam arrived at the cemetery, stake in hand, he couldn't see Merrick anywhere. He wandered around looking for him for a few minutes, growing increasingly bad-tempered as he went. It was pretty pathetic if a man that old was playing a prank on a high school sophomore, Liam thought. He felt disgusted that he had let himself be duped into thinking that he'd really be able to fight things like the monsters that had killed his mom and sister—that he'd allowed himself once again to entertain the childish belief that their murderers had been anything other than human.

Liam turned to leave, only to come face-to-face with the same inhuman features that had plagued his nightmares for years. Fear was the first emotion he felt, but it was almost immediately eclipsed by blinding fury and hatred. A powerful force he had never felt before seemed to come alive inside him, and when his fist collided with the vampire's face, it went flying backward two yards, tripped over a headstone, and crumpled to the ground. Liam stared at his fist in astonishment, but didn't have time to process his inexplicable super-strength before a feral snarl reached his ears. He looked up to see the vampire struggling to his feet, and felt the fury licking his insides again.

The fight didn't last long. After dodging a couple of the vampire's attempted blows with ridiculous ease, Liam flipped the demon over on his back and plunged the stake into his chest, which caused him to explode into dust. Gripping the stake so tightly that his knuckles turned white, Liam staggered backward from the spot, his mind reeling from what had just happened.

"You see?" came Merrick's voice from behind him. "You see your power?"

"H-how?" he stammered, his eyes still on the patch of grass where the vampire had been.

"It was supposed to be Faith," said Merrick with a heavy sigh.

Liam whipped around to look at the Watcher instead. Nobody this side of the Atlantic knew about Faith. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Your sister was supposed to be the one chosen. There has never been a male Slayer before, you see, but no Slayer has ever had a twin, either. It's quite a fascinating little anomaly, actually. It seems that when she was killed, her potential transferred to you. Or perhaps it was shared between you from the womb. Either way, the Council was still quite surprised when you were chosen. They thought for sure that one of the other potential Slayers—one with training and a full understanding of the calling—would have been chosen, but, obviously, that was not the case."

"So you want me to fight vampires in my sister's place?" asked Liam.

"That's what it means to be the Chosen One," said Merrick.

Liam considered him for a moment. He didn't like the idea that this was what Faith would have had to do if she had lived, but he wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to kill the things that had torn his family apart. "Then I'm your man," he said at last. The words came out in a growl.

"I'm glad to hear it," said Merrick. "I'll be in touch with you soon to discuss training."

Liam nodded. He turned to go, but the hair on the back of his neck prickled, as if he was being watched. He spun around, squinting at the trees several yards away, but there wasn't anything there.

[o]

Buffy remained frozen in place behind her tree long after the boy and his Watcher had gone. A male Slayer. How was that possible? She had heard the Watcher's explanations, but still. Fascinating anomaly, indeed.

* * *

So, there we are. Some backstory for our protagonists, with some bonus Fred and Lorne involvement. I used Fred there because I felt like if I didn't, it would mean that she'd be trapped in Pylea like in canon, except that this story's plot won't exactly provide for her getting rescued from there. So...just pretend that the portal that got Lorne out of Pylea was created by some other means than via Fred's unfortunate mishap in the library. I really overthink this, don't I? Anyway. Liam's broken family makes me sad. Parker being Buffy's days of yore fiancé makes me giggle unpleasantly. There will be more flashbacks in future installments regarding his fate, oh yes.


	2. King of Hearts

Okay, wow, it's certainly been a while, hasn't it? Part of that was because I wanted to finish a few of my other projects (Which I did! Woohoo!), but another part was that I couldn't decide whether to skip ahead to Sunnydale or flesh out the L.A. beginnings for a few chapters. In the end, I decided that I'd rather be writing Sunnydale, but there will definitely be flashbacks of what happened in L.A. every once in a while.

* * *

March 1997

Liam looked balefully up at his new high school. Two weeks ago, his father had been offered the opportunity to set up a new minor office in Sunnydale, a town none of them had ever even heard of until then. It was apparently a big deal; they were even sending someone all the way from the Galway office to be his partner. He had readily accepted the offer, and so here Liam stood at the entrance to Sunnydale High.

It wasn't leaving L.A. that bothered Liam. After what had happened in the past few weeks, he was glad for a reason to be elsewhere. He didn't have any friends there, so there was nothing important to miss. The Sunnydale house was nicer, even if it still smelled funny. Even better, his dad's new job also came with a shiny new sports car, which meant that the '67 Plymouth GTX they'd had since the L.A. move was now his. No, what bothered him was that the second he stepped inside this building, he would bear the beacon-like label of 'New Kid'. He remained motionless for a few more seconds as he contemplated this unwelcome prospect with a grimace, then readjusted his bag and unwillingly plodded into the breach with a moody hunch to his shoulders.

First came the obligatory meeting with the principal, a sweaty-faced, insecure man whose declarations of friendly welcome and acceptance were completely at odds with his wary behavior. Liam gave the shortest replies possible to his questions, and soon (though not soon enough), he was dismissed.

About ten minutes later, he was frowning at the course schedule the registrar had given him. He was supposed to be in English now, but he had the vague suspicion that he had wandered into the science hall instead.

He was so preoccupied trying to reconcile his schedule with his present location that he didn't pay very careful attention to where he was going, and crashed into a girl, sending her books flying out of her arms.

"Sorry!" she said nervously. Her wine-red hair spilled forward to hide the blush rising on her pale cheeks as she dropped to a crouch and started gathering her things.

"No, it's my fault," he said, bending down to help her. "Here."

"Thanks," she said timidly, taking the stack of books back from him. She gave a shy little smile and walked past him.

"Hey, wait!" he said suddenly, remembering his earlier predicament.

"Huh?" she asked, turning around and looking up at him with wide eyes.

"It's just—I'm sorta new here," he said awkwardly, "and—"

"N-need help finding your class?" she guessed.

"Yeah," he admitted, running a hand through his hair and trying not to look too sheepish.

"I can show you," she said, smiling again—a little more confidently this time.

"Thanks," he said in relief. "I'm Liam."

"I'm Willow. So, w-what's your first class?"

"English." He checked his schedule again. "With, uh, Linder."

"Oh, me too," she said, her smile widening. "I just have to take these books to Dr. Gregory first."

After Willow had deposited the books in Dr. Gregory's classroom, she showed Liam to class, pointing out most of his other classes on the way. When they arrived in Mr. Linder's Honors English class, Liam was very conscious of the fact that everyone was staring at him, though Mr. Linder, whose red beard and long ponytail gave him the look of a Viking, scored a lot of points by not making a big embarrassing scene of welcoming him to the class.

Liam faced a brief internal crisis when the time came to choose his seat. There were a few empty ones scattered around the room, and the one in the back corner immediately caught his eye, but on the other hand, there was also the one right behind Willow, who had for some unfathomable reason chosen to sit precisely front and center. It was a difficult choice, but Willow's tentative, encouraging smile ultimately won, and he dropped his things on the desk behind her and sat down.

He slouched in his seat as much as he could and made eye contact with no one, but he could still feel the curious stares of his classmates on him for the duration of the period. At least they probably wouldn't make fun of him like the other sixth graders had when he first started school in L.A., but the attention he received didn't have to be negative for him to hate it.

[o]

English wasn't the only class he shared with Willow, but it was the only one in which he was able to sit by her. In History, he found himself seated instead beside a very pretty brunette who did nothing but ogle him for the entire class, which was both uncomfortable and, he couldn't deny, flattering. When the teacher told them to open their books, she promptly leaned right into his personal space in her eagerness to be the one to share her book with him, as he had yet to acquire his own. That was when it stopped being flattering.

After the bell rang, Liam tried to hurry away, desperately hoping for a moment of solitude, or at least to find Willow again, but the brunette somehow managed to put herself directly in his path. "Hi!" she said, flashing a brilliantly white smile at him. "You're new here, right? I'm Cordelia Chase."

"Uh, Liam Gallagher," he said.

"Ooh, like the lead singer in Oasis?" she asked eagerly.

He scowled, but didn't answer. His life had been so much easier when everyone around him already knew that he was a loner. Then again, a small, traitorous voice in his head pointed out, she _was_ very pretty. Maybe it wouldn't have to be too bad.

"Well, if you're looking for a textbook of your very own, there are probably a few in the library," she said.

"Oh. Great," he said. Helpfulness was a good sign, right? "Thank—"

"I'll show you," she interrupted, still smiling. "Come on." Before he could begin walking, she had moved to his side, looped an arm through his, and began to forcibly lead him along like a dog on a leash. "So, you're from Hemery, right? In L.A.?" she asked as they entered the hall.

"Uh, yeah," he said, wondering how she could possibly have known that and starting to look for a way to escape. Unfortunately, he failed to come up with any that didn't involve using more brute force than would be gentlemanly. He couldn't even duck into a boys' bathroom, because this particular hallway didn't seem to have one.

"Oh, I would _kill_ to live in L.A.," she was saying enviously. "That close to that many shoes?"

The urge to tear his arm away from hers was building steadily. If this was the quality of conversation he could expect from her, he would probably go insane in a matter of minutes, no matter how pretty she was.

"You're going to try out for the football team, aren't you? You're probably amazing at it," she said, boldly stroking his bicep with her free hand. "I mean, you're so muscular."

"No," he said flatly, suddenly very thankful that he was wearing a jacket.

"Why not?" she asked, as if his answer was completely absurd.

"Never really got into sports." Never American football, anyway, and he'd lost most of his interest in the rest after his mum and sister were killed, but there was no way he was telling this girl about that. And the muscles were merely an unplanned but happy side effect of killing demons by night—about which he was also not going to tell her.

"Well, it's not too late to start," she said dismissively. "It's off-season now anyway, but there's always next year." After moving on from football, she kept up her mind-numbingly inane chatter all the way down the hall, maintaining a firm grip on his arm the entire time, until they arrived at the drinking fountain, where, to Liam's enormous relief, they found Willow.

After finishing her drink, Willow looked up and noticed them standing there. She looked from Liam to Cordelia and back again in slight confusion and…fear? Liam opened his mouth to say hello to her, but Cordelia beat him to it. "Willow! _Nice_ dress! Good to know you've seen the softer side of Sears."

Liam didn't really understand what was insulting about her words, but he couldn't miss the scorn in her voice, and his opinion of her dropped still further.

"Uh, oh, well, m-my mom picked it out," Willow said a little blankly, clearly also unsure of what Cordelia was getting at.

"No wonder you're such a guy magnet," said Cordelia in disdain. "Are you done?"

Willow looked at the drinking fountain and jumped slightly. "Oh!" she said, then scurried away.

"You want to fit in here," said Cordelia to Liam, "the first rule is: know your losers. Once you can identify them all by sight, they're a lot easier to avoid."

Liam scowled at her in disgust and abruptly removed his arm from her clutches. "Looks like I won't be fitting in, then," he said coldly, before turning his back on her and stalking away. He could hear her shrill huff of indignation behind him and felt a kind of grim satisfaction, fully aware that he had probably just killed his best chance for achieving popularity in this school.

The only problem now was that he had to find the library on his own, but he didn't care. After a few minutes of wandering while trying to look like he knew where he was going, he found the place. Relieved, he pushed the doors open and strode inside, pulling his schedule out of his pocket and scanning the list of textbooks attached to it.

At first glance, the library seemed to be empty. Liam looked around at the heavy-looking wooden study tables and the tall bookstacks with interest, feeling some of the tension of being in a new school drain out of him. He already felt more at home here than he had anywhere else in the school, and he could easily envision taking frequent refuge in this place.

"Can I help you?" came an unexpected voice from behind him.

Liam turned around to find a tweed-clad, bespectacled man of approximately the same age and height as his father looking at him intently from behind the counter. "Uh, yeah. Here. I need these books for class." He slid his booklist across the countertop. It was only then that he noticed the newspaper sitting there, with a front page article headed "Local Boys Still Missing" circled in red.

"Ah, yes, then you would be Mr. Gallagher, I imagine," said the man. His accent was distinctly British, and he spoke with a kind of quiet intensity.

"Yeah," said Liam.

"I'm Mr. Giles, the librarian," said the man, bending down to retrieve something from beneath the counter as he spoke. When he came up, however, it was not with the books on Liam's list. Instead, a heavy, leather-bound tome fell onto the counter with an ominously loud _thud_ that seemed to go on much longer than was natural. The book's cover bore the gold-embossed title _Vampyr_. "I believe you'll be needing this."

Liam's eyes widened and snapped up to Mr. Giles's face. "You're a Watcher," he said after a brief pause.

"Well deduced."

Liam's jaw clenched as he struggled to keep his mind from going back to the events of the month before. "Just get my books. I don't need a Watcher."

"Don't be absurd," Mr. Giles chuckled as he began to retrieve the books on Liam's list. "All Slayers need Watchers."

"I know how to fight. I can do my own research. I don't need help."

"A Slayer's training isn't complete simply because she—or in your case, he, obviously—has mastered the basics. It hasn't even been a full six months since you were called. You cannot claim to be an expert."

"How do you people keep finding me?" Liam demanded, now in full glower mode.

"The Council has a number of resources at its disposal. As the Slayer is the reason the organization exists, it would hardly do to lose track of him."

"So, what, you've got me lojacked?"

"For all intents and purposes." Mr. Giles set the stack of textbooks down on the counter beside the _Vampyr_ book.

Liam picked up his books and continued to glare, but said nothing. Rather than being put off by this, Mr. Giles observed him with a shrewd expression. "If this is about what happened to Mr. Merrick—"

Before he could utter another word, Liam turned abruptly and stormed out of the library. It was a while before he had calmed down enough to remember that he needed to find his locker next. Once he located it and dumped his new books inside, he decided to go in search of Willow, with whom he was pretty sure he had at least one more class later in the day. It didn't take him long to find her, unfamiliar though he was with the layout of the school. She was sitting alone on a bench in a shady part of the courtyard, taking a sandwich out of a brown paper bag.

"Hey," he said once he reached her. He did his best to replace the scowl that his encounter with Mr. Giles had produced with a less hostile expression, but he must have done a poor job of it, because when Willow looked up at him, she startled and shrank back slightly in alarm.

"O-oh, sorry, I can move," she stammered, looking away and reaching for her things.

"What?" said Liam, somewhat taken aback. "Why?"

"Well, aren't you with Cordelia?" she asked, confused.

"No," he said shortly. He sat down next to her and took out his own lunch.

"So, a-are all of your classes in about the same place as they were in your other school, or do you have lots of catching up to do?" Willow asked nervously.

"Same."

"Oh. T-that's good."

He nodded and began to eat in silence while Willow fidgeted and shot him many fleeting glances, as if she was trying to pluck up the courage to ask him why he was in such a bad mood compared to earlier. She never succeeded, though, and they were joined a couple of minutes later by two guys who looked about their age. When the newcomers saw Liam, they slowed in their approach.

"Hey, Willow," said the rounder-faced one cautiously, his wary eyes still on Liam. "Made a friend?"

"Oh, hi, guys," said Willow, looking a little relieved to no longer be alone with her silent, glowering companion. "Liam, this is Xander and that's Jesse."

"You're the new guy, right?" asked Jesse.

"Yeah."

"Cool."

"How'd you meet Willow?" asked Xander, eyes still slightly narrowed as he took in Liam's uninviting black-on-black attire and surly expression.

"We have English together," said Willow. "And some others, I think."

"So you're in the honors classes?" said Jesse.

"Yeah," said Liam.

"Oh, a brain. Explains why we didn't meet you until now," Jesse snorted.

Liam said nothing, wishing they'd leave him alone. He hadn't particularly minded when it was just Willow, but he wasn't at all interested in getting sucked into a group.

"Gee, are you always this talkative?" said Xander.

"Xander," said Willow reproachfully. "He's new. Leave him alone."

"What?" said Xander defensively.

"Hey, so are you guys going to the Bronze tonight?" asked Jesse, who had clearly missed the brief flash of antagonism between the others.

"Yeah," said Willow brightly, "after I finish my homework."

"So you'll be the first one there," Xander teased affectionately.

"What about you?" said Jesse, looking at Liam. "Wanna come?"

"What's the Bronze?"

"It's a club," said Willow.

Liam mentally recoiled at the idea, but he found that his automatic refusal simply would not come with Willow looking at him with such a sweetly anxious yet hopeful expression. It wasn't as if he had to agree to spend hours there, though. He could put in a brief appearance, then leave and find out how many vampires this town had. Maybe there would even be a few of them at the club. It was probably their ideal hunting ground. Besides, Willow didn't exactly strike him as being any more the clubbing type than he was, so it might not be too bad. "Okay," he said reluctantly.

"Whoa, don't let all that enthusiasm give you a heart attack there, pal," said Xander. At another stern look from Willow, he quickly changed tact, "So, uh, how come you transferred here?"

"My dad's work."

Further interrogation was prevented by the arrival of Cordelia, who, unfortunately, seemed willing to give Liam a second chance. "Are these guys bothering you?" she asked.

"No." And it was partially true. Though he would prefer to be left completely alone, Cordelia's company ranked decidedly below that of Willow and her friends.

Willow looked from one to the other of them in trepidation. Jesse, on the other hand, moved closer to Cordelia and grinned at her. "Hey, Cordelia," he said.

"Oh, please," she groaned, holding up a hand to deflect him. "I talked to the football captain, and he said you're on for tryouts."

"I don't play," Liam reminded her, annoyed.

"Whatever. But anyway, I just wanted to tell you that you won't be meeting Coach Foster, the woman with the chest hair, because gym was cancelled due to the _extreme_ dead guy in the locker."

For the first time since he met her, Liam was interested in what Cordelia was saying. His scowl evaporated as he fixed her with a piercing stare.

"What are you talking about?" asked Willow faintly.

"Some guy was stuffed in Aura's locker," said Cordelia with somewhat less grimness than the topic warranted.

Wordlessly, Liam grabbed his stuff and left, trying to remember where the locker rooms were, and barely noticing the general bewilderment he left in his wake. He was starting to get a hang of the layout of the school, and he managed to find the girls' locker room far more quickly than he had found the library. The door was locked, but that wasn't a problem. He glanced around to make sure the coast was clear, and then, with a sharp twist of the knob, the lock broke. He slipped inside, ignoring the nervous twisting of his stomach that resulted from being in the room where boys were forbidden to tread.

He found the body laid out on a bench at the far end of the room. When he pulled back the sheet covering it, he was a little surprised to have his suspicions confirmed by the bite marks on the guy's neck. He dropped the sheet back into place and made his way out. The way the body had just been left in a public school struck him as very ominous. The L.A. vampires had generally been far more discreet. If an attack was fatal, the victim was usually left in an alley or the sewers, and certainly not in the nicer part of town—definitely never a school. That probably meant that these vampires were a lot bolder, or that there were more of them. Or that this town was seriously screwed up.

[o]

When school finally ended, Liam was one of the first ones out the door. He threw his bag into the backseat of the car and hopped in. Sunnydale High and the elementary school Kathy now attended were probably the only two things in town that weren't in walking distance of each other, but Liam was glad, because it gave him a legitimate excuse to drive the car.

He pulled up along the parent drop-off curb of Sunnydale Elementary, and had barely put the car in park when Kathy came running up and got inside. "Hi, Liam!" she said. She scooted across the seat and hugged him in greeting, a smile on her face.

"I'm guessing you had a good first day," said Liam, one eyebrow raised, a slight smile of his own beginning to form. He couldn't remember Kathy ever being this cheerful after school.

She nodded. "My teachers are really nice, and this girl, Sarah, let me sit with her at lunch. We played together at recess, too." She buckled herself in, and Liam pulled away from the curb and drove out of the school lot. "How about you?" she asked eagerly.

Liam shrugged. "It was okay, I guess."

Kathy gave him an impatient look. "You have to say more than that!"

He grinned at her mischievously and reached over to tickle her on her side. She squealed and moved out of reach, then smacked him indignantly on his arm.

"Okay, fine, I'll tell you," he laughed. "I bumped into a girl when I was trying to find my first class, and she showed me where it was. Her name's Willow. We have a lot of classes together, so I kind of followed her around all day. Her friends invited me to go to a club with them tonight."

"Wow, really? Are you going to go?"

Liam grimaced. "Yeah."

"Hey, maybe it'll be fun!"

Liam snorted. "Yeah, right."

Kathy rolled her eyes. "You're still gonna help me unpack my stuff like you promised, right?"

"I'm all yours until sunset."

She beamed.

[o]

Sunset arrived far sooner than Liam would have liked, but as he set out for the Bronze, he did have the consolation that most of the evening would be devoted to slaying. He found the club easily enough, but had barely been inside it for five seconds when Cordelia found him.

"Liam! I didn't know you were coming here," she said breathlessly.

He scowled at her. It made no impression whatsoever.

"I know tonight's band isn't that great, but whatever. Let's dance!"

"I don't dance," he said. This didn't seem to sink in either, but before she could latch onto his arm like she had at school, he sidestepped her and moved away through the crowd as quickly as he could. To his relief, he spotted Willow when he reached the other side, and he sat down in the empty seat next to her.

"Oh, hi, Liam!" she said brightly when she recognized him.

"Hi," he said, looking around to make sure Cordelia hadn't followed him.

"I wasn't sure you'd show up," said Willow.

"I said I would."

Her face fell as she looked at him. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to," she said uncertainly.

"It's okay," said Liam, though the only reason it actually was okay was that he could sense that there was at least one vampire somewhere on the premises, but he couldn't do anything unless he located it, and he couldn't do that if he drew attention to himself.

"A-aren't you going to dance?"

"No."

"Oh."

After another moment of somewhat awkward silence, it finally occurred to him that Willow was probably attempting to have an actual conversation with him as a gesture of welcome and friendliness, but that his responses weren't making it very easy for her, particularly considering her obvious shyness. If it had been anyone else, he probably wouldn't have even considered obliging, but Willow reminded him a lot of the way Kathy was around anyone who wasn't him. She seemed so vulnerable and hesitant that he couldn't help feeling protective of her, and he didn't want to hurt her feelings. So he would make this effort to talk to her. At least until he found the vampire. "What about you?"

"Huh?" said Willow, startled.

"Are _you_ going to dance?" he clarified.

"O-oh." She went red, and her eyes darted to a spot about fifteen feet away. "M-maybe. I-if someone asks me." Liam followed her gaze and saw one of the guys from earlier…Xander, if he remembered right. When he looked back at her, her cheeks were even redder.

"Why don't you ask someone instead?" he said.

Willow looked terrified at the very idea. "D-do you really think I should?" she squeaked.

"Why not?"

She didn't answer, but she still looked petrified.

"Just go up to someone and ask. It's no big deal." He would have felt better about giving this advice if he had ever followed it himself, but he couldn't imagine that it would be hard to ask someone to dance if he really wanted to. Which he definitely did not. All he wanted was for the vampire in the club to show itself already so that he could leave without feeling like he was abandoning Willow.

Willow, meanwhile, was frowning at him, considering what he had said. He looked around idly, hoping to find the vampire amongst the crowd, but he hadn't been looking long when he was distracted by the sight of the man standing on the second floor that overlooked the main club. His brow furrowing and a scowl beginning to set in, Liam got up and headed for the staircase, leaving Willow behind, though she was still too preoccupied with his suggestion to really notice.

"What are you doing here?" he asked in a low, angry voice once he was within Mr. Giles's hearing range.

"Looking for you," hissed the Watcher, who seemed to be painfully aware of how spectacularly out-of-place he looked here, and was none too pleased about it. "Were you aware of the vampire attack at the school?"

"Yes."

"Then why did you not report to me?"

"I don't report to anyone. I work alone."

"Now, you listen to me. Whatever you might have convinced yourself to the contrary, you most certainly need help. Particularly in a town like this."

"The last guy who tried to help me is dead," said Liam bluntly.

"I'm well aware of that," said Mr. Giles, his expression temporarily sympathetic before it went back to sternly disapproving.

"So what makes you think it'll be any different for you?"

"There's no guarantee that it will. You think I didn't know the risks when I took the job? Every Watcher does, Merrick included."

Liam turned away from him and looked out over the crowd, though he wasn't really seeing it. The metal of the railing creaked and crumpled slightly under his grip.

"I've been studying fighting techniques and demons for longer than you've been alive," Mr. Giles continued. "If you want to be an effective Slayer—if you want to _survive_, you need what I can teach you."

"Can you pick out the vampire in this crowd?" Liam asked.

"What?" Mr. Giles looked out at the mass of people on the dance floor, frowning. "You can sense it?"

"I could sense it the moment I walked in here."

Mr. Giles clearly hadn't expected that, and he stared at Liam in surprise.

"Ever since Merrick found me, every single night, I've spent hours hunting them down," said Liam. "I learned fast. I don't need you to tell me how to do my job. I've been ready for this since I was eleven."

Comprehension dawned on Mr. Giles's face, which then filled with sorrow. "When your mother and twin sister were killed."

Liam looked back down at where he had last seen the vampire, and with a jolt to the guts, he recognized the girl talking to him. It was Willow, and she was apparently doing more than following his advice, for her hand was in one of the vampire's, and he had started to lead her out. "If you'll excuse me," Liam said, his cold voice betraying none of his alarm at what he had just seen, "I have a vampire to slay." With that, he left Mr. Giles standing awkwardly at the edge of a group of teenagers on the upper level.

* * *

I think I will usually try to make the chapters a little bit longer than this, but since this one was kind of half of the Intro to Sunnydale part, I left it this long. The next chapter will be Buffy-centric, but she and Liam won't necessarily meet face-to-face until the chapter after that. Anyway, I cannot tell you how much fun it was to write a scowly, asocial Liam in all of those scenes that we're used to seeing Buffy in. In particular, it cracks me up how quickly he became Willow's barnacle.


	3. Queen of Spades

It's a new year, and my muse is suddenly very active for this story, now that she's gotten the _Harry Potter_ and _Pride and Prejudice_ fic ideas out of her system. Okay, this is the aforementioned Buffy-centric companion chapter to Liam's "King of Hearts" (points to anyone besides Kairos who can guess where I got these two chapter titles from). I should warn you that the time line in this one really isn't linear. The first and last scenes are of Buffy at the Bronze at the same time as Liam at the end of the previous chapter, but everything else is set either when they were both in L.A. a few months earlier or just after she was sired in April of 1753.

* * *

Sunnydale

March 1997

As a general rule, Buffy preferred to avoid clubs. All that sweaty, pulsing, hormonal humanity was just a little too much strain on her mental equilibrium, not to mention the ear-splittingly loud music. And the dancing was just so wild and unrefined compared to that of previous eras. Lorne's karaoke bar had possessed none of these drawbacks (it was frequented by demons rather than humans, the music was only as loud as the singer, and there wasn't even a dance floor to begin with), which was part of what she had liked so much about it.

But other vampires did not share her reservations against such clubs as the Bronze, except perhaps the one about the loudness of the music. For them, they were the best places to pick up dinner, which was what she had been coming to hopefully prevent every night since she arrived in town.

At the moment, she was sitting by herself at one of the small tables, idly sipping some kind of tasteless fizzy non-alcoholic drink as she scanned the crowd for vampires, all while trying to ignore the heavy scent of several dozen teenagers' hormone-spiked blood.

She had almost reached the cherry at the bottom of her glass when she heard a familiar voice behind her and caught a whiff of the scent that went with it, but she didn't turn around. The angel-faced boy was here? That was what she had called the Slayer in her head ever since the night she saw him stake his first vampire. She hadn't expected to see him again after she left L.A.—not this soon, anyway, but now he was in Sunnydale too.

†

Los Angeles

October 1996

"So was that kid the one you saw when you read me?" asked Buffy, choosing to ignore Lorne's gloating smirk. She had returned to Caritas moments before, immediately after which she had been steered over to a table by the very self-satisfied host.

"You mean teenage tall, dark, and handsome?" he said, one eyebrow raised. "That's your guy."

"He's a Slayer," said Buffy flatly.

Lorne set his sea breeze down and frowned. "Okay, I might be relatively new to this dimension, but I thought that was a girls-only club."

"It was. I've read all the Slayer lore there is, and I lost count of how many of them I've seen in action. Girls. Always."

"And all this observation was conducted from minimum safe distance, I hope," said Lorne, his expression both alarmed and stern.

Buffy looked at him rather balefully. Most, if not all, of the times she had sought out a Slayer in the past had coincided with a desire to put an end to her eternal life, but fear of what awaited her on the other side had held her back every time.

"You aren't planning to get this poor kid to shuffle you off, are you?" he asked when she said nothing, his voice a little louder and the alarm in it more pronounced.

She dropped her gaze to the bar. "No."

"Well, good! The vibe I got when I read him off you is that he's going to need your help, not that he's your ticket to Slayer-assisted suicide. Do you realize how intertwined two people's futures have to be for me to be able to read them off each other after only a couple of hummed bars of one song?"

"Yeah, great. How am I supposed to help a Slayer?"

"How are you supposed to help? What kind of a question is that? You've got two centuries' experience on any human mentor they could send him! You know, if you want more details about it, all you have to do is sing for me some more."

"No," she said flatly.

"Oh, come on," he said, "Why do you keep holding out on me? There's no way someone who used to be known as 'Elizabeth the Siren' doesn't have a killer set of pipes on her."

"Ha. Ha. I didn't get the stage name because of my voice," said Buffy, before steering the conversation firmly back to its earlier topic. "I'm a vampire, Lorne. Soul or no soul, that still makes me his mortal enemy."

"Well, sure, if you act like it. I know you haven't looked in the mirror for a couple hundred years, but anyone who didn't know better would look at you and see an innocent little high school girl," he said. "Who is, in a very good way, completely stuck in the '50s," he added, glancing at the modest, strongly swing-reminiscent sundress she wore.

"Innocent? You're hilarious."

"You have the look, honey-pie."

Buffy sighed and closed her eyes. "I know." As Elizabeth the Siren, she had used that look of innocence to lure countless people to their deaths. She didn't like the idea of employing that same strategy on the angel-faced boy. She knew it would work if she tried it, though. She had long since discovered that, thanks to her soul, Slayers couldn't sense her the way they sensed other vampires.

"All I'm saying is that our Slayer-boy is gonna see that innocent little high school girl just like everyone else. The demon isn't what shows, especially with those big soulful eyes of yours."

Buffy turned those eyes on Lorne. For a long moment, they remained large, round, and uncertain.

†

England

April 1753

The first thing Elizabeth was aware of feeling was hunger. Deep, gnawing hunger that propelled her to leave the grave that imprisoned her. As she dug herself out, she discovered other things. While, in life, she had been a powerless waif—if a spirited one, in death, she was stronger than she could have imagined. The earth yielded easily before her assault. And she could hear so much. The heartbeat of a creature burrowing at the base of a tree yards away from her grave. A breeze shifting the leaves of that tree. The footsteps of two beings whose hearts did not beat, drawing nearer to her. She also noticed that where there had once resided within her a love for her family and friends and God; the desire to bring some form of cheer to those around her, whether they be servant or lord; remorse for the times she had failed and pained them instead; and many similar sentiments besides, there was now naught but an empty, black void.

Dimly, she could imagine how horrible this would have been had she still lived—the fear that would have choked her as her grave struggled to keep her, pressing down with all its suffocating force. But she no longer needed to breathe, and so moved at a leisurely, unconcerned pace.

Finally, she broke the surface and clambered out. By the moonlight, she could see that she was covered in damp earth, but that could be remedied shortly. For the moment, she was more interested in her welcoming party, and in doing something about that intolerable hunger.

"Welcome, child."

Elizabeth turned her lifeless eyes on the speaker. It was the demon who had given her this new existence in death. She could remember how she had feared him, but nothing of that fear remained. She now felt gratitude and a powerful urge to follow him and do his bidding, whatever it may be.

"What am I?" she asked.

"A vampire," said the second figure, a beautiful blonde woman who wore fine clothes and a cold smirk. "Like me and our Master." She looked worshipfully at the older vampire beside her.

"What would you have me do?" Elizabeth asked of him.

"Whatever you desire," said the Master. "I'm curious."

The woman's expression tautened. Elizabeth guessed that he had not given her the same freedom. She couldn't prevent a gloating smirk from twisting her face, and the woman's eyes flashed angrily. This exchange did not go unnoticed by the Master, who threw back his head and laughed. "Jealous of your new sister already, Darla?"

†

1996

Despite Buffy's professed reluctance to have anything more to do with the Slayer, she found herself seeking him out again the very next night. As she had anticipated, he returned to the cemetery. He was new at this, after all, and wouldn't know where else to find the things he hunted yet. What surprised her a little was that his Watcher was nowhere to be seen. Had he come alone, without being told to?

She watched him from the shadows as he walked between headstones.

His heart rate was faster than normal and the knuckles of the hand with which he clutched his stake were white, but she couldn't smell any fear. One glimpse of his face told her that the emotion pulsing through him was anger.

It wasn't difficult to piece together. This was not just a calling for him. It was personal. From his current behavior and the conversation she had overheard between him and the Watcher last night, she guessed that vampires had killed at least one member of his family in the past—his twin sister, Faith. Now he knew what had done it, and he had the power to wreak his vengeance.

Another fledgling rose within an hour of his arrival in the cemetery, and he dispatched it with the same ease as the one he'd killed the night before. This time, having seen what he could do, Buffy didn't even think of jumping out to help, but she did watch. The rage and hatred that continued to twist his beautiful features as he stood over the fledgling's ashes tore at her heart. This calling was going to destroy him. Was that what Lorne thought she could prevent? How could she, when she deserved to die at the end of his stake? In that moment, the crushing guilt over all the lives she had taken, the families she had torn apart, and the smug delight with which she had done it all nearly propelled her forward into his line of vision to let justice claim her at last in the form of this newly forged avenging angel. But as always, she held herself back, feeling worse than ever.

When he left the cemetery, she followed, careful not to make a sound or do anything else to alert him to her presence. He led her all the way to a quiet suburban neighborhood, where he disappeared inside one of the matching houses. She drew close enough to it that she could hear three different hearts beating within. So he wasn't completely alone. She was glad.

†

1753

Elizabeth didn't know what the Master expected of her. He and Darla had left her where she was, and she had not followed. She wanted to impress him. It would be extremely diverting if she became his favorite, when that was a distinction Darla had obviously kept for a very long time, and one that she prized highly. However, she wasn't convinced she'd have the patience to devise something suitably impressive while she was still so painfully hungry.

But that could be remedied easily enough. The churchyard in which she had been buried was located on her father's estate. She paused by a stream on her way towards the manor to rinse away some of the clinging grave dirt. When she reached the gardens that surrounded it, she could hear a familiar voice singing words that she had often sung.

"Shall I go walk the wood so wild,

Wand'ring, wand'ring here and there,

As I was once full sore beguiled,

Alas! for love! I die with woe."

It was one of the songs Elizabeth had learned from the maids and sung to Dawn to help her sleep when they were younger. No one else had ever known of this tradition they shared. How fitting it was now. She walked forward until she could see her sister sitting on a stone bench, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, her face streaked with tears. In life, this had been Elizabeth's favorite spot in the gardens. She moved still nearer to the grieving girl and sang the last four lines. Her voice was clear and strong as it had always been, yet somehow lower and devoid of its old warmth.

"Wearily blows the winter wind,

Wand'ring, wand'ring here and there,

My heart is like a striken hind,

Alas! for love I die with woe."

At the first note, Dawn jumped and looked at her. "Lizzie?" she asked once the song was over.

"Yes, it is I, sister," said Elizabeth. She smiled affectionately, but suspected that she wasn't quite doing it right. Dawn did not seem to notice, though, for she flung herself forward off the bench and threw her arms around Elizabeth.

Her warmth and the scent of her blood were startling in their intensity, but Elizabeth merely savored them as returned the embrace, humming the song again, then kissing Dawn on the forehead.

Dawn shivered and drew back. "Why are you so cold?" she asked.

"Am I?" she said. "Do Mother and Father miss me?"

"Of course. We all do. Please say you've come back to us."

"I have."

Dawn's face split in a brilliant smile. She seized one of Elizabeth's hands and tugged. "Come inside with me now, and we'll tell them together. They'll be so happy!"

Elizabeth didn't move. She considered for a moment, though at this point the scent of Dawn's blood was driving her almost completely out of her mind with hunger. She reached up and stroked the side of Dawn's face.

Dawn's brow wrinkled in puzzlement. "Lizzie?"

Elizabeth's control was further strained by the slight trace of fear that now flavored her sister's scent. She felt a curious sensation in her forehead and the bridge of her nose, and her teeth seemed to itch. "Sweet little Dawnie," she said, still smiling, "how would you like to stay with me forever?"

"Of course," she said, still looking confused. "I love you, Lizzie. You're my sister."

Elizabeth's smile widened, and she felt a change come over her visage.

Dawn's scream pierced the still night air.

†

1996

Buffy was still reluctant to get involved, convinced as she was that she could do nothing to help the angel-faced boy. But it wasn't often that she found something new after more than two and a half centuries on Earth, and he was certainly that, so she continued to watch him. She overheard many conversations and arguments between him and his Watcher, who, when he found out about the nightly Slaying excursions, called him a reckless novice who was ignorant of danger. He had not, after all, been properly trained, and what he was doing was therefore close to suicidal. The Watcher didn't see what Buffy did, however. This Slayer's technique might be sloppy and unrefined, but he knew how to hold his own.

The fight in him was still fueled by rage, and it didn't look like that would be changing soon, but Buffy's concern over what that would do to him lessened after the first time she saw him interact with his little sister. She was what anchored him to his humanity. He laughed and played with her, helped her with her homework, and always looked out for her. He never left to patrol until after she had fallen asleep.

Something else that lessened her worry was the way he seemed to view his calling, for it quickly became apparent that his allegiance was not to the godless Watchers' Council. Not long after those first few nights, he began to frequent St. Brendan Church, which wasn't too far from his home. She did not follow him inside. Even without monstrous gargoyles perching on the roof to protect the place from things like her, as were so commonly found in Europe, she did not dare trespass.

Lorne continued to insist that he needed her help, but though she watched and waited, he never seemed to get into more trouble than he could handle. Thanks to training and a great deal of practice, his technique was improving quickly. Within a couple of months, he was able to sense vampires nearby, and he got better and better at it every night, until he could pick them out in groups of humans. He left the graveyards and went in search of older prey than fledglings, much to the horror of his ever-cautious Watcher.

When his hunt took him into the less respectable parts of the city, he would occasionally run into the street gangs that had been battling vampires there for years in order to survive. At first, they didn't get along well at all. He thought they were taking far too much risk (and particularly had a problem with the leader, who often allowed his kid sister to tag along) over something that wasn't even their responsibility. They, in turn, didn't appreciate a middle class white boy's intrusion in their lives. But they ultimately forgot their differences after they angered one of the older L.A. vampire clans. In the desperation of the battle that followed, they were glad to have whatever allies they could get. None of them knew it, but Buffy took out two of the surviving vampires when they tried to flee.

†

1753

Elizabeth had been disappointed when, after the exquisite taste of her family members' blood, that which she had sampled from the few servants she tasted rather than just killing was slightly lacking. She didn't know whether it was because she hadn't been particularly hungry anymore by the time she got to them, family blood was special, or there really was a difference between noble and common blood after all.

She had been fascinated to discover, after her terrified lady's maid had done her hair and assisted her into her finest gown—one of blood red silk cut so daringly that she had never even tried it on in life—and the jewels that went with it, that when she stepped in front of the mirror to examine the overall effect, she had no reflection. All she could see was the maid's body sprawled on the floor several feet behind where she stood.

As she departed the manor, she passed near the place where she had left her sister's body. She felt the ghost of something like regret that Dawn had rejected her offer in the end. But, remembering how annoying and shrill she could get, she decided that she would be better off not having to endure her company for eternity after all.

She was certain the Master would be pleased with the state in which she had left the manor, but there was one more thing she wanted to do before she returned to him. She was going to see her dear fiancé one last time.

†

1997

For the first time since she started keeping an eye on him, Buffy was legitimately worried for the angel-faced boy's survival. Unfortunately, the clan he and the street gang had taken out together had had allies, and their leader was much older and more powerful than anything he had ever faced. But he knew nothing about it. She was going to have to get a message to him somehow.

As she was standing on the roof of a building, watching him walk along while she tried to think up a strategy for contacting him, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she looked around.

"Long time, no see, little sis'."

"Hello, Darla," said Buffy in a bored voice, looking away again. She was careful not to let her gaze fall on the Slayer, hoping that Darla hadn't already noticed him. But it was a vain hope.

Darla moved forward to stand next to her and looked out over the edge of the roof too. "Ooh, he's a pretty one, Elizabeth. You always did have good taste. I'd say he's even better than Penn. A little young, though. If you're planning to keep him, you might want to think about giving him a few years to ripen."

Buffy said nothing, but the brick under her fingers cracked. It was everything she could do to suppress a growl. At least Darla didn't seem to know he was a Slayer. That was one of his biggest advantages. Nobody ever expected a male Slayer, so they always underestimated him.

Darla laughed softly. "You're no fun anymore, you know," she said, her tone haughty and disdainful. "But if you ever get nostalgic for the old days, dear, there's a Hellmouth a couple of hours away. You might even see a few familiar faces."

"Has the Master sent his obedient little messenger girl to invite me to another family reunion?" said Buffy, smirking. "What _will_ it take for you to be his favorite again?"

She could practically hear Darla's teeth grinding. Soul or no soul, antagonizing her just never got old.

"I'm here recruiting," she said, attempting a condescending simper, "not that it has anything to do with you."

"Why? Daddy still stuck in that hole he landed himself in sixty years ago? He's lucky to have such capable minions who are so quick to do something about that."

"He will be free," Darla snarled. "And when he is, this world will be his. "

"Somehow I doubt he'll get a unanimous vote with that face," Buffy snorted. Then, before Darla could retort, she added, "You'd better get on with your assignment. Wouldn't want to keep him waiting."

Darla left without another word. Buffy remained where she was for a moment. Only when she was sure Darla was gone did she allow her worry to show. Despite what Buffy had said, she knew how catastrophic it would be if the Master managed to get free of his mystical prison. But first she had to warn the Slayer about the danger facing him in L.A.

†

1753

Elizabeth was amazed by how powerful her sense of smell had become. It was what she had to thank for the ease with which she had found Parker. She had to laugh at how naïve she had been. Not once in the past four months of their engagement had she suspected him to even be capable of dishonesty or infidelity. But it turned out that she had been as wrong about that as she had about him being her fearless protector.

She discovered him in a rather disreputable pub, where he seemed to be losing rather a lot of his father's money at cards. His scent was mingled with not only the scent of the barmaid, but with that of one of her own close friends. Though she was now a vampire, she still would not have known what that meant had she not witnessed his coarse flirting with the barmaid. And she would have married him without a single inkling of the truth. What a pathetic, trusting fool she had been, she thought contemptuously. What weak creatures humans were.

She didn't have to wait long for him to gamble the rest of his money away and leave. She was pleased to note that the one virtue he did seem possess—at least tonight—was sobriety. She wanted him at full mental capacity for this.

"Viscount Abrams," she called once he was well on his own.

He jumped about a foot in the air and spun around to face her, then stared, his face white as a sheet. "L-lady Elizabeth," he stammered. "I thought you were dead."

"Well, I am certainly not in my coffin, as you can see," she said sweetly.

He was still staring, but no longer out of shock. A slight smirk twisted his lips, and his eyes raked up and down her figure. "You should wear dresses of this cut more often, my love," he said, walking towards her into the alley.

"I plan to," said Elizabeth. She moved closer to him and stretched out a hand to lightly stroke the top of his waistcoat. His breath faltered and his heart pumped faster. Oh, how woefully wrong his assumptions of her intentions were. She had to fight back a laugh. "So tell me, my darling," she said in a low, husky voice, moving even closer so that her lips were barely an inch away from his, which were parted in anticipation, "exactly how long did you plan to carry on your affair with Lady Amelia after we married?"

He went rigid and staggered back. For a few seconds seemed to be struggling to find words to deny what she had said. Something in her expression must have convinced him that it would be futile, however, for all he ended up saying was a very shaken, "H-how did you know?"

"Perhaps I'm not quite the gullible little fool you thought was your betrothed," she said, drawing herself up scornfully. "But that's fair, is it not? For neither are you the courageous, loyal, God-fearing man I thought was my betrothed."

Again, he scrambled visibly for a defense, but found none. Elizabeth was disgusted. He was, in fact, entirely worthless. She would have thought the same as a human, she was sure—had she not been distracted by her broken heart, but that was an ailment to which she seemed fortunately immune as a vampire. She didn't even feel like drinking him anymore.

"How diverting," she said with a laugh that made him shrink visibly inward in alarm. "To think that I would have come into our marriage as pure as the day I was born, never even dreaming in my besotted state that the same could not have been said of you, or that such a close friend as I believed Amelia to be could ever betray me in that way."

"If you wish me to release you from the engagement," he began uncertainly, but she cut him off.

"I may not be well read in matters of the law, but I had thought that Reverend Hinkle would have _some_ reservations against performing a marriage ceremony for the dead. This engagement is already over."

"The dead?" he said, confused. "What do you—" He broke off, and the fear that had previously only been slight now surged forth to completely dominate his scent. "How did you escape that monster last night?" he asked slowly.

A smile formed slowly on her face, growing until it became an evil leer. She let her demonic features emerge. "I didn't."

He tried to back away, but his retreat was cut short by the outer wall of the pub.

"What do you want with me?" he asked, his voice little more than a whimper.

"To show you the price of your cowardice," she said.

†

1997

"Lorne!" Buffy called loudly and urgently as she strode into Caritas. "Lorne!"

"Hey, hey, crumb cake," said Lorne, appearing around the side of the bar in a purple velvet dressing gown. His expression was alarmed and his hands were outstretched, palms down, in a calming gesture. "What's the matter?"

"Are we alone here, Lorne?" she asked.

"Yeah, it's after hours," he said with a small, incredulous laugh, gesturing at his dressing gown. "Hence the fabulous ensemble."

"You said if people's futures are intertwined enough, you can read things about one of them when the other sings?"

"Yeah…."

"What about if their pasts are intertwined instead?"

"How much shared backstory are we talking, here?"

"Century and a half."

"That should be enough," he said dryly.

"Well then pull up a chair, because you're about to hear my debut performance."

If she hadn't been so worried about what the Master and Darla had planned, she might have found the surprised delight and horrified anxiety that were warring on his face highly entertaining.

"What's your pleasure?" he asked once he had recovered. "Uh, just as long as it isn't Enya, because I'll be in a trance for a week. Possibly doing interpretive dance."

"Don't worry. This predates anything you have on that box by a couple centuries."

He raised an intrigued eyebrow, then settled into a chair while she got on stage. She looked at him grimly, then closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and sang:

"Shall I go walk the wood so wild,

Wand'ring, wand'ring here and there,

As I was once full sore beguiled,

Alas! for love! I die with woe.

Wearily blows the winter wind,

Wand'ring, wand'ring here and there,

My heart is like a striken hind,

Alas! for love I die with woe."

†

1753

"You have done well, my child," said the Master. "Welcome to the Order of Aurelius."

"Thank you," said Elizabeth, dropping him a curtsy.

"Would you like a new name?" he asked after regarding her thoughtfully for a moment.

Next to him, Darla didn't bother to hide her scowl, which led Elizabeth to suspect that the choice of her name had been another privilege the Master had not allowed her. She lifted her head and stared at Darla in the fashion of the haughtiest noblewomen of her former acquaintance when they looked down their noses at someone of lesser rank. "If it pleases you, Master, I would prefer to keep the name I have."

Darla looked amused, but Elizabeth had not finished.

"However, perhaps I could add a title, of sorts?"

"What did you have in mind?" asked the Master, intrigued.

"Siren."

†

1997

Lorne stared at her for a long moment after she finished singing, his mouth half open. "Wow," he said wonderingly. "You really _didn't_ get the stage name because of your voice."

"Do I get a reading now, or what?" she said, glaring at him.

"Well, you were on key, I'll give you that much," he allowed. "And you had some nice vibrato in there, and good projection. Just don't be too disappointed if you don't make it far with a career as a soloist."

"I never _wanted_ to sing," she reminded him through clenched teeth, tilting her head to the side in a strangely threatening fashion.

"Right, sorry," he said. He cleared his throat and looked at her more seriously. "Sounds like your place is in Sunnydale now."

Buffy sighed deeply. Actively thwarting the plans of her sire and his cronies had never been high on her list of favorite hobbies, "Okay." Her face fell. "What about the Slayer? Apart from dusting a couple of vamps that got past him and slipping him one anonymous warning note, I haven't exactly helped him yet."

Lorne shrugged. "This is where your paths diverge. They might converge again."

Buffy rolled her eyes and smiled wearily, knowing he knew far more than he was saying, but that she'd never get it out of him. "You really love this mysterious wise man gig, don't you?"

"Hey, that gig's my livelihood, sugarplum."

†

Sunnydale

Still not turning around, Buffy shook her head and smiled ruefully to herself as she listened to the Slayer's laconic responses to a girl whose voice she recognized vaguely—she pictured red hair and huge doe eyes when she heard it. Had Lorne known all along that this was where their paths would converge again?

* * *

Okay, the plan now is to alternate writing chapters of this with episodes of "Season 9" until that one is finished, and my New Year's Resolution is to do it in a timelier fashion than I did last year. Now then, about the chapter. I'm really sad I covered all the necessary scenes with Buffy and Lorne in this, because those were probably my favorites to write. We got to see a little of what Liam was up to in L.A. through Buffy's eyes, but still not what happened to get Merrick killed and make him so happy to move to Sunnydale when his dad was transferred. That's a flashback for another day. Some little details I had fun with were modern vamp Buffy's preference for '50s-retro clothing (might become a motif in later chapters), the jab at the surreality of Enya, and the mention of gargoyles protecting churches from demons (it would have been so cool if there had been something about that in canon). Also, most of my historical knowledge of 1753 England and its culture is actually from _Pride and Prejudice_, which was set more than half a century later, so I apologize for any inaccuracies that might have caused. I do know that the little song Buffy and Dawn sang has been around more than long enough to be used here, though. Bonus points to the first reviewer who can identify the unnamed _Angel_ cast cameo in this chapter.


	4. Fighting Forever

At long last, an update! I wanted to update this much sooner, but the second half of "Welcome to the Hellmouth" proved to be much more complicated to rearrange with Angel as the Slayer and Buffy as the vampire with a soul than I had anticipated. I finally got it all sorted out and found the time to get it written this past week, so here it is! Title of this chapter is from a Breaking Benjamin song. Also, this is another one that moves around in the timeline, though definitely not as much as chapter three did. The first few scenes are from the first night after Liam got called, and then the rest of it is back to the evening of his first day in Sunnydale.

* * *

October 1996

Los Angeles

Liam's mind was so full of what had happened in the cemetery that it wasn't until he was standing in front of his house that he realized where his feet had been taking him. He gave a start and looked at his watch. It was two thirty-two in the morning. He didn't exactly have a curfew—his reclusive tendencies meant that he'd never really needed one—, but this was still more than five hours later than he had ever come home.

For a second, he considered trying to climb up to his window to enter that way (something he'd never attempted before, but which he thought would probably be easy, especially since he seemed to have super strength now), but then he remembered with a distinct darkening of his mood that his dad wouldn't care anyway, so he pulled out his key, walked straight up to the front door, unlocked it, and entered.

Light was coming from the office at the bottom of the stairs. Liam glanced into it as he passed and saw his dad bent over a stack of documents on his desk. He made to keep going, but the floorboards creaked beneath his feet and he froze, certain that he was about to regret his decision not to come in through his window.

"Oh, it's you, son." His dad turned tired eyes towards the clock on the wall. "Blimey, that late already?" he asked vaguely, running a hand through the short ginger hairs on the back of his neck and casting a resigned look back at the documents.

"Yeah. I'm going to bed now," said Liam cautiously.

"Good, good. Wish I could do the same."

Liam walked up the stairs, feeling oddly disappointed. It wasn't as if he had _hoped_ to be punished, but he had thought that his dad would at least have _some_ reaction to his late return. His spirits sank back to the gloomy place in which they had settled earlier and it was with a dark scowl that he entered his room, where he was startled to find the light still on and his pajama-clad sister sitting awake on the end of his bed. Before he could recover from his surprise, Kathy increased it by leaping down and throwing herself hysterically into his arms.

"Kathy, what—," he began, but she answered his question before he could finish it.

"Oh, Liam, I was so worried! You l-left and I thought something awful happened like w-with Faith and M-Mum, and then Dad and I w-would be all alone, and…." She went on and on, sobbing out all of her fright into his shirt, while guilt welled up in him. How could he have left her here so afraid? He should have known that even if his father paid him no attention, the same would never be true of Kathy. They were all each other had, and yet he'd just forgotten about her like that. He vowed on the spot that no matter what his new responsibilities as the Slayer entailed, he would not allow anything to come between himself and his baby sister.

As gently as he could, he pried her arms loose from their vice-like hold around his middle and knelt down so that he was at eye level with her. She hiccupped and bit her trembling lip while he brushed away the tears still clinging to her cheeks. "Hey, it's okay. I'm still here. I'll never leave you alone. I _promise_."

Her expression changed into an uncertain pout. "But where did you g-go?" she asked. She swallowed hard, obviously trying to get a grip on herself.

Liam hesitated. He couldn't tell her the truth. She was just an innocent little kid and they'd been through too much already, and she was so scared. But what _could_ he tell her? "It just seemed like a nice night for a walk," he said, trying to sound casual. "I lost track of time."

So greatly did Kathy hero-worship her big brother that it didn't even occur to her to question him or to think this was a feeble story. However, while skeptical she was not, she did feel hurt. "But you didn't say anything."

"I know," he said, completely repentant. "I'm sorry." He pulled her into another hug, which she returned as tightly as she could.

†

Kathy was already asleep by the time Liam had finished getting ready for bed, and a new fear struck him as he gazed at her sleeping form. What if he wouldn't be able to keep his promise? He had won the fight against tonight's vampire, but what would happen on the night he _didn't_ win? Because, somehow, it seemed very unlikely that he would win night after night until he died of old age.

Of course, he'd never have to find out if he refused to fight and pretended nothing was different—but no. Like Kathy, he remembered what had happened to their mother and sister. Until he could forget that, he would never be able to ignore the calling that pitted him against the things that had killed them. The next thing he knew, the same burning hatred that had filled him when he killed that vampire rose up in him again.

†

The very few hours of sleep Liam was able to get that night were filled with dreams of girls his age from every land and time period imaginable fighting vampires and other horrible creatures. No matter how well they fought, one by one, he saw each of them fall in battle. After what felt like a long time, he noticed that he was not the only observer.

"Faith!" he cried in surprise.

"Hey, little brother," she said, grinning.

"I'm only younger by thirteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds," he said automatically, "and I'm definitely not the little one." He stared at her. While he certainly was taller than her, she looked the same age as him, and more like their mother than ever. But he'd never seen her any older than she was the night she died in his dreams. "This dream is different, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Faith. "And you'd better get used to it. Your dreams are gonna be stuck on this channel for the rest of your life."

"Are you going to be here?"

"They gave you my job," she said, nodding at the Slayer whose life they were currently observing. "Gotta make sure you're doing it right. Can't let my own twin screw it up just 'cause he's a boy."

"We miss you. And Mum," said Liam quietly, choosing not to comment on her last remark. "It's been really hard without you."

"Hey, this isn't a family reunion, it's pass the torch," said Faith. She paused. "Or, _share_ the torch, I guess."

"But you won't be there to share it when I'm awake."

"No. You're gonna have someone else for that."

At that moment, he heard the familiar irritation of his alarm clock's ring and was unable to ask her what she meant.

That day, after walking Kathy home from school, Liam visited St. Brendan Church for the first time outside Sunday Mass, and that night was the first night he went out to hunt vampires without informing his Watcher.

†

March 1997

Sunnydale

Xander didn't trust that Liam guy. He was one of those creepy quiet types. You never knew what a guy like that might be thinking, but you just _knew _he was capable of badness. What did he want with Willow? Shy, harmless, _defenseless_ Willow. And how had she missed the megawatt danger vibe he gave off? Or was she just too scared to tell him to leave her alone? Yeah, that sounded like Willow. Jesse didn't seem bothered by him either, though. For a moment, Xander wondered if he was being paranoid, but that moment passed quickly.

He looked around the Bronze again to see if Liam was still sitting with Willow. Neither of them was where he had seen them last, but he thought he caught a glimpse of Willow's curtain of dark red hair disappearing through the exit. Was she leaving with Liam? He scanned the crowd, hoping he was wrong, and finally spotted Liam descending from the loft and heading straight for where Willow had gone. That psycho was following her! And if Xander had still harbored any doubts about how dangerous he was, they were gone; the look on the other boy's face was murderous.

†

Liam moved through the crowd as quickly as he could, but he still wasn't fast enough to catch up to Willow before the vampire led her out of the Bronze. By the time he made it outside, they were nowhere to be seen. He checked the alley behind the club, but it was empty. So, the vampire wasn't just after a quick meal, then. He must be taking her to a nest. Liam hurried back to the front of the building, but he still couldn't see them anywhere, and this wasn't his home turf, so he had no idea where vamp nests were likely to be.

"Mind telling me why you're following my friend?" came a voice from behind.

Liam turned to see that Xander had followed him. "Go back inside," he said curtly.

"Not until you tell me what you want with Willow."

Liam's jaw clenched. He didn't have time for this. That vampire could be taking Willow anywhere. "She isn't safe. She left with someone."

Some of the suspicion in Xander's face was replaced with confusion. Apparently it hadn't occurred to him that Liam might be the rescuer, not the attacker. "That was probably just Jesse," he said.

Liam shook his head. "I think he left earlier."

"So you're telling me that _Willow_ left with a guy she met at the Bronze?" said Xander, an incredulous grin breaking out on his face.

"I have to find her before she gets hurt," said Liam, whose frustration and annoyance were steadily mounting. On one hand, he wanted very much to be free of Xander's company, but on the other, he also knew that Xander had a far greater chance of guessing where Willow had gone than he did, being both a Sunnydale native and her longtime friend, so he had no choice but to enlist his help. He quickly cast around for a believable lie that would get Xander on board, because the truth would most likely only produce time-wasting questions and incredulity. After a couple of seconds, he went with, "I think I saw him put something in her soda."

Xander's grin faded and his eyes widened in alarm. "Are you serious?"

"_Yes_," Liam almost snarled. "Now help me find her."

"Okay, um," said Xander, who now seemed to be having trouble thinking due to panic, closing his eyes and shaking his head, "after we go to the Bronze, we, uh, we usually get ice cream at that place past Maple, so maybe she went there. Come on." He started jogging up the street, but Liam called him back.

"We'll take my car," he said, pointing to the GTX parked on the curb a few yards away. "It'll be faster."

"Do you really think they got that far already?"

"If he's got a car too," said Liam.

"Okay," Xander finally agreed. They both quickly hopped into the car.

After a couple of blocks, they passed a cemetery and Liam's vamp sense immediately spiked. "In there," he said to Xander, parking the car and jumping out. Rather than going around the perimeter to the cemetery gate, he ran to the eight-foot-tall wrought iron fence, leapt up, caught hold of two of the spikes on top, and vaulted over to the other side, where he landed on the ground in a crouch without so much as stumbling.

"What _are_ you?" he heard Xander say behind him, but he ignored him and sprinted off between the headstones. Halfway across the cemetery, he spotted Willow. The vampire was leading her towards a mausoleum near the back fence. As he got closer, he could hear Willow talking. She didn't seem to be hurt at all, and she only sounded nervous, rather than frightened. Not wanting to give the vampire time to try using Willow as leverage against him, Liam did not slow his pace, but continued to run at full tilt towards them. The vampire had just looked around, undoubtedly in search of the source of the sound of running footsteps, when Liam barreled into him, sending them both flying over a tombstone.

"Liam! What are you doing?" cried Willow, who definitely sounded frightened now.

"Get out of here!" Liam yelled as he wrestled with the vampire.

"But—," she started to protest, but whatever she was about to say was lost in a high-pitched scream when the vampire, who had managed to break free of Liam's grip, whirled around to face her, yellow eyes flashing and fangs bared. Before he could get any closer to her, Liam tackled him again and plunged his stake through the left side of his back.

After brushing his clothes free of dust, Liam stood and faced Willow, who looked like she was about to faint. "You okay?" he asked.

"He—he just turned to dust," she said faintly, staring at the place where the vampire had been with wide eyes. "W-what was he?"

"Vampire," said Liam.

Willow looked up at him. There seemed to be even less color in her face now. "Oh," she said.

"Willow!" said Xander, who had just caught up to them. "What happened? I thought I heard you scream. Where's that guy?"

"Scared him off," said Liam, while Willow staggered against Xander, her breathing shallow and her eyes still very wide. Xander put an arm around her to keep her upright. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of Liam's neck stood up and he spun around. He couldn't see them yet, but he knew there were more vampires heading their way. "We've gotta get out of here," he said.

"You are seriously starting to give me the wiggins, man," said Xander, but at the look Liam shot him, he began to move anyway, Willow still clinging to him.

"And where do you three think you're going?" came a sneering voice from the direction of the gate. Two more vampires were standing there.

Willow let out a squeak of fright and seized Xander by the arm, Xander yelled and took a step backward, his eyes on their deformed features, and Liam moved to stand in front of them. "We're going home," he answered, brandishing his stake and glowering menacingly at the vampires.

At first, they didn't react at all, but then they burst out laughing. This was not the first time vampires had reacted to Liam this way. Apparently quite a few of them found the idea that a sixteen-year-old boy thought he could intimidate them hilarious. But he was used to this and knew how to make the most of it. Before their laughter had died away, he moved forward and, a second later, the _remaining_ vampire was watching the ashy remains of his comrade drift to the ground beside him in utter astonishment. He recovered from this quickly, however, and lunged at Liam, his fangs bared. Liam caught one of his outstretched arms, turned, and rolled his shoulder, a simple motion that sent the vampire flying. He collided agonizingly with the top edge of a large tombstone ten feet away and tumbled to the ground in a heap. Liam was after him at once and soon he had joined the first two vampires as dust.

Willow and Xander stared as Liam walked back over to them, still keeping an eye out for more vampires. He knew that hadn't been the last of them. Cemeteries didn't make good hunting grounds, so usually only the newly risen vampires could be found in them. This many older vampires coming through it meant that they must be accessing their nest through it somehow, and more of them would be coming before long.

"So, uh, would that be the same way you 'scared off' Willow's date?" asked Xander.

"Yeah," said Liam, who was barely paying attention to him, now more focused on removing several items from his jeans and jacket pockets and straining his senses to detect more vampires nearby.

"Great! And here you had me imagining roofies. Who knew it could actually be _worse_ than that," said Xander with a kind of horrified sarcasm. "What's this for?" he added, for Liam had just thrust a glass vial into his hands and a wooden cross into Willow's.

"Crosses and holy water repel vampires," said Liam, now divesting himself of the jacket and setting it on top of a tombstone. The evening was too warm to be comfortable wearing it while fighting. "How far away from here do you live?"

"A-a few blocks," said Willow.

"Yeah, we're on the same street," said Xander.

"Good. Both of you get home as fast as you can. Don't invite anyone in and don't come outside again before sunrise."

"What about you?" asked Willow, now clutching the cross as tightly as she had previously been clutching Xander's arm (which still bore red marks from her fingers).

"It's my job to kill those things," said Liam, his grip tightening on his stake and his lip curling slightly. "So that's what I'm gonna do."

"Your last name wouldn't happen to be Van Helsing, would it?" asked Xander.

"Gallagher," said Liam, who still wasn't really paying attention to him, except to feel annoyed that he wasn't taking this seriously. "Now go."

Xander did start moving this time, but he hadn't gone five paces before Willow froze and turned back, seizing him and forcing him to stop moving too. "Wait!" she cried. "Jesse! Liam, I think I saw him leave the Bronze with a girl I've never seen before. What if she's one of them, too?"

"I'll look for him," said Liam.

Willow nodded and allowed Xander to continue moving towards the gate, though she looked frequently back over her shoulder at Liam until he was out of her line of sight.

†

It wasn't long after Willow and Xander left that more vampires arrived in the cemetery. Yes, Liam thought, this was definitely the access point for the nest. It had to be a pretty big one, too, probably with a really old vamp in charge. What on earth were so many vampires doing in such a small town? Three had come this time: a woman and two men. There was no sign of Jesse or any other struggling humans between them, so Liam threw himself into their midst without a second thought. It was a reckless strategy, and he paid for it when the female's nails raked him deeply across the back, but he achieved his goal, which was to give them no time to adjust and coordinate their retaliation.

Liam could feel the blood soaking the back of his ruined t-shirt as he fought, but he didn't let the wound slow him down. Fighting three vampires at once, it was difficult to go on the offensive, but at last he was able to get in under the blocking arm of one of the males with his stake. When he turned to dust, the female seemed to take it as her cue to flee for her life, and she tore off across the cemetery, leaving Liam and the other male alone.

"This is impossible!" the vampire growled furiously as Liam matched him blow for blow.

"No," said Liam, driving his fist upward into the vampire's solar plexus with enough force to lift him off his feet and send him crashing to the ground, "this is the Slayer." The familiar feeling of hatred boiling in his blood, Liam raised his stake and bore down on the vampire, whose eyes had widened in horror at his words.

He was about to land the fatal blow when a voice from somewhere nearby shouted, "Look out!" He spun around just in time to avoid a powerful strike from another vampire who had sneaked up behind him, which probably would have laid him flat and might even have knocked him out if it had connected. He let fly his own punch, catching the newcomer hard in the nose, then drew back sharply so that his elbow collided with the face of the first vampire, who had gotten to his feet. This disoriented both of them long enough that he was able to stake them in quick succession. Panting slightly, he straightened up with a slight wince and looked around, hoping to see where the female vampire had run off to, but she was long gone, so instead he turned his attention to the person who had cried the warning.

"I know you're still there," he called loudly. It wasn't entirely true. Although he did have the feeling he was being watched, he'd experienced that so often since October without anyone actually being there that he had stopped trusting it. But hopefully if whoever it was were still in hearing range of his voice, they would believe him and show themselves.

For a moment, there was neither reply nor any sound of movement, but then a light, amused voice said, "Well, it's good to see that the Hellmouth's finally found itself a decent guardian angel," and a young woman stepped out from behind one of the large trees growing in the grounds. She moved a little farther into the dim light cast by the lampposts that ran along the path in the middle of the cemetery, and Liam was able to see her more clearly. He was struck by how beautiful she was. She had long, golden-blonde hair that she had pulled back from her face, her eyes were bright and intelligent, and a small smile was playing about her lips. Despite the fact that she was rather petite and looked at most a year or two older than he was, she didn't seem to be remotely afraid after what she had witnessed.

It was a few seconds before Liam was able to collect himself enough to speak. "Who are you?" he asked. "What are you doing out here?"

"I'm Buffy," she said, taking a few steps toward him. "I was on my way home when I heard something over here, so I came to check it out and saw you fighting those vampires."

"You know about vampires," said Liam.

"They weren't the first ones I've seen," she said, and the way she said it told him he wouldn't be getting a more detailed explanation about that any time soon, so he let it be.

"Did you see any of them taking someone through here? He's a little taller than me, black hair, really skinny."

Her brow furrowed in apparent concern. "Is he a friend of yours?"

Liam shrugged. "I just want to make sure he made it home okay."

"Haven't seen him," she said. "I'm sorry."

"What you said before—what did you mean by 'Hellmouth'?" he said after a brief pause.

The amused little smile came back. "Ask your Watcher."

Liam stared at her. "You know I'm the Slayer."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "I just saw you slay three vampires in under five minutes. What else would you be?" Then, in a more serious tone, she went on, "Talk to your Watcher. You need to know what he can tell you about this town and what he can teach you about your calling. And make sure you ask him about the Harvest."

Liam tilted his head slightly and stared at her even more intently. "It's you, isn't it?" he said. "You're the one who's supposed to help me." He was sure she was. At first, he'd thought Faith might have been talking about Mr. Merrick, and then he'd wondered if it was the leader of that vamp-fighting street gang, but he looked at this girl and just knew she was the one, even though he had no idea why.

"I don't know," she said.

"How can I contact you?" he asked with an urgency he could not explain to himself. He stepped closer to her.

"I'll be around," she said cryptically.

"Do you need me to walk you home?" he tried again.

"Thanks for the offer, but I can take care of myself," she said, her eyes twinkling. "I'll see you soon, Angel." And with that, she left him standing alone amongst the tombstones. It took a moment for him to register what she had called him, and then his brow furrowed in confusion.

Liam didn't remain in the cemetery long after she left. He collected his jacket from the tombstone and gingerly eased it on over the scratches on his back, which were now stinging as they began to heal, then headed for his car. If it wasn't for the wound, he might have gone searching for the nest that night, but tracking down a nest that contained an unknown number of vampires seemed like a very stupid thing to do when he was already bleeding, Slayer or not. He could move quietly enough that they couldn't always hear him coming, especially if there was a lot of other noise to drown out the sound of his heartbeat, but his blood would give him away immediately no matter how stealthy he was. All he could do now was pray that Willow's fears were unfounded and that Jesse had made it home safely after all.

†

But he hadn't. Not long after Liam returned home, Jesse was being dragged a considerable distance through the sewers until the deceptively dainty-looking blonde chick he'd met at the Bronze finally pulled him into something that looked like a cross between a cave and an old-fashioned church, where she deposited him unceremoniously at the feet of a man who had the most terrifying face he'd ever seen in his life. It seemed crazy to think it, but he couldn't possibly be human. Jesse wanted to run, but a combination of fear and the strange sluggishness that had plagued him ever since making out with the blonde chick made it difficult to move. Worse still, the three of them were joined almost immediately by a man who was built like a brick wall and whose face was almost as terrible as the first man's. Even if Jesse could run, he knew he would never be able to get past him.

"Is this for me?" said the first man.

"An offering," said the second.

"He's a good one!" said the blonde chick. "His blood is pure."

There was a pause and a kind of chill seemed to emanate from the first man. Jesse felt the blonde chick recoil slightly beside him. More than ever, he just wanted to be back at home. He could imagine how different his evening would have been if he had only left the Bronze when Cordelia shot him down. Right now, he'd probably be struggling to finish enough of his homework to satisfy his parents, teachers, and Willow that he had at least tried to do it properly, but before long he would be interrupted by his younger brothers, who would be trying to frame him for breaking yet another old knickknack they had knocked off a shelf.

"You've tasted it," said the first man, shattering Jesse's happy alternate reality with the sound of his voice. "I'm your…faithful dog. You bring me scraps."

"Thomas and the others should have returned with more offerings by now, Master," said the second man.

"Yes, you're right," said the first man thoughtfully. "What could be keeping them, I wonder?"

"Master, I heard two humans talking when I was on my way here," said the blonde chick, who seemed eager to ensure that the first man did not remain angry with her. "They know of us. It sounded as if they had just witnessed one or more of us being killed by a boy."

"What boy?" asked the first man sharply.

"I don't know. I didn't see him. By the time I returned to the mausoleum with this one, the cemetery was empty."

"What did you hear?"

"I thought those two would make good offerings as well, so I followed them, but they were carrying a cross and holy water. I didn't want to risk losing the one I already had if they fought me, but I listened. If what they said is true, then this boy killed three of us tonight. The girl called him Liam."

Jesse couldn't stop himself from gasping in surprise at the sound of the name, which drew the eyes of all three of them onto him.

"Well, well, well, Darla, it seems that your offering and this Liam are acquainted," said the first man.

"Master! Master!" cried a new voice. Another woman ran into the cavern, relieving Jesse from the stares of Darla and the two men.

"Yes, Tamara?" said the first man.

"James—he's dead," she said. "And Randolph probably is too. There was a boy in the cemetery, and he fought us. I was lucky to escape."

"Lucky to escape from a _boy_?" said the second man scornfully.

"Don't be so dismissive, Luke," said the first man. His hand shot out quick as lightning and caught Tamara by the wrist. He pulled her fingers up to his face and inhaled deeply through his nose. Jesse could see that Tamara's fingernails, which were long and sharp, were covered in what looked like dried blood. "That wasn't just a boy," the first man continued, releasing her hand. "He was the Slayer."

There was a shocked silence.

"But that's not possible," said Darla eventually. "Slayers are always girls."

"Not this one," said the first man. "How very intriguing. I think I'd like to meet him."

"That can be easily arranged," said Darla. "After all, what Slayer would not come to the aid of a friend?"

The second man, Luke, leered at Jesse, who now felt like he would literally be sick with fear. "I thought you nothing more than a meal, boy," he said, seizing Jesse tightly by the scruff of his neck. "Congratulations; you've just been upgraded to bait."

* * *

Okay, just so you guys know, this is what Buffy is wearing (although in my head, hers is a silkier texture and cream-colored): www. modcloth. com/Womens/Tops/Short+Sleeve/-Unofficial-Tour-Guide-Top (take out the spaces). She's wearing that with jeans. I would have mentioned it in-story, except that Liam really doesn't notice clothing. He couldn't see what was wrong with Willow's mom-picked dress and he doesn't realize how intimidating he looks wearing mostly black all the time, so unfortunately he also doesn't notice the outfit Buffy's wearing, even though it took me two hours the other day to figure out. Heh. Okay, moving on. We've got Faith in Liam's Slayer dreams. Killing Faith off was more out of necessity so that Liam could justifiably be a Slayer even though he's a boy than because I actually wanted to kill her off, so this way she can still be in the story in spirit guide capacity. It makes sense; she and Liam are connected by the Slayer calling that was meant for her, so it's kind of like her unfinished business. Now, about Liam's mad Slaying skills as compared to Buffy's not-so-mad ones at this point in canon. The important thing to remember is that Buffy didn't want to be a Slayer. This wasn't something she enjoyed or accepted about herself until much later. She hadn't been going out every single night to hunt vampires. Liam has. He is extremely devoted to his calling and never misses an opportunity to put it to work. That's why he's so good at slaying by now and why he actually developed the vamp sense that Buffy never seemed to get. He's also very practical when he fights, except when his hatred of vampires clouds his judgment. Probably my two favorite things about the chapter are Xander calling him Van Helsing and Buffy calling him Angel. The former just kind of happened, but I think I'm going to use it for the rest of the story, and the latter was definitely planned. More on that in the next chapter.

Also, holy crap this story already has a hundred reviews and this is only the fourth chapter. You guys are awesome.


	5. I Will Not Bow

HA! Okay, I wasn't expecting it to be so easy to write this chapter after how long it took me to write the most recent "Season 9" episode (not including the time before I actually started writing), but I started on Sunday and it's already finished, even though it's easily the longest chapter of the fic so far! So here we go with "The Harvest", as it would have been if Buffy and Angel had swapped roles. And let me just say before I let you get on with the chapter, I had no idea how testosterone-filled this story about a teenage male Slayer would be when I started (not that I was displeased when I realized it). You'll see what I mean. Title of the chapter is from the Breaking Benjamin song of the same name. I'm convinced they would have been Liam's favorite band...if they'd been around in the mid-'90s, that is.

* * *

As Sunnydale Elementary started half an hour earlier than Sunnydale High, Liam arrived to his second day of school long before the first bell rang. His mind still full of the conversation he'd had with Buffy in the cemetery the night before, he headed straight for the library. He could tell from Mr. Giles's surprised expression that the Watcher had not expected to see him so soon, and he especially hadn't expected Liam to be the one to approach him.

"Hello again, Mr. Gallagher," he said, continuing to sort books. "How did the hunt go last night?"

"Killed six," said Liam.

Mr. Giles promptly dropped the books he was holding. "You killed six vampires in one night?"

"One hour," Liam corrected him.

"I say, that is very impressive."

"There's a nest somewhere under the cemetery," said Liam, shrugging off the compliment. He hadn't liked it when Mr. Merrick underestimated him, and the fact that Mr. Giles was already doing so did not bode well. "I couldn't risk going down there, not while I was still bleeding."

"Bleeding?" said Mr. Giles, frowning as he looked Liam up and down. "You weren't seriously injured, I hope."

Liam shook his head. "Surface wound. It's healed now."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"What can you tell me about the Hellmouth?" said Liam, wishing to get to the point of this encounter.

Mr. Giles looked around at him in surprise. "Did you hear that term from one of the vampires you encountered last night?"

"No," said Liam. "From a girl."

"What girl?"

"Her name is Buffy. Late teens, blonde, this tall." He held up his hand to illustrate. "She's here to help me."

Mr. Giles raised an eyebrow. "I thought you worked alone. Pretty, was she?"

Liam scowled at him. "I was told about her in one of my dreams. I wouldn't even be here if she hadn't told me to come."

"She sounds like a smart girl. Am I to understand, then, that you've decided to allow me to be your Watcher after all?"

Liam nodded curtly.

"Excellent."

"But I have conditions."

"Oh?"

"I'm going to hunt every night."

"And you don't want me to stop you."

"You can try."

"Ah. Then you want me to let you set your own slaying pace without making a fuss about it."

"I know my own limits, and I work within them. The more I hunt, the more innocent lives are spared."

"In that case, you needn't fear my interference. If you'd told me this last night, I would have thought you were trying to bite off more than you can chew, but six vampires with barely a scratch?" He chuckled. "Is that your only condition?"

"I'll train with you, but training comes after family, school, and church."

"What time of day does that leave?"

"Before school starts and in the evenings. Maybe during the day on Saturdays."

"You seem to have very clear priorities set for yourself." Liam wondered if a lecture was on its way and braced himself for it, but Mr. Giles surprised him. "That's a very rare and admirable quality in a young man. You should know that, unlike many Watchers, I would never have presumed to infringe upon your time with your family, nor would I have expected you to give up church or abandon your education."

Liam nodded again, this time in gratitude.

"Now then," said Mr. Giles, his tone suddenly businesslike, "I believe you wanted to know about the Hellmouth."

†

When Liam took his seat in Mr. Linder's class half an hour later, his thoughts were still awhirl with everything Mr. Giles had told him about the Hellmouth and the ancient vampire apparently stuck inside it. It certainly explained why there were so many vampires in such a small town. As to the Harvest, Mr. Giles had no idea, but he had assured him that he would research it all day if he had to.

A few minutes before the tardy bell rang, Willow walked into the room. She looked pale, there were shadows under her eyes, and she was clutching the strap of her bag so tightly that the tendons on the backs of her hands stood out. She dropped her things on her desk, sat down, and turned to face Liam. "D-did you find Jesse?" she asked, her large hazel eyes searching his.

"No," he said. "There was no sign of him."

Willow looked like she wouldn't be able to handle much more stress. "I called his house as soon as I got home last night, but he wasn't there."

Liam glanced around surreptitiously to make sure nobody was listening to them, then said, "And you haven't seen him here at school today?"

"No, but I don't usually see him or Xander until lunch."

They couldn't say more than that, however, because the seats around them were rapidly filling, and Liam was proving just as much an object of curiosity to his classmates on his second day as he had on his first. Willow turned to face the front again, but Liam could see the tension in her back and shoulders. He wished he could offer her something more reassuring about Jesse. If he _had_ been captured by vampires, chances were that they had taken him to that nest. In Liam's experience, humans were usually kept alive within nests as more long-term sources of blood, so it was actually very likely that Jesse wasn't dead.

He could hardly share this information with Willow, though. For all they knew, Jesse was in class right now, or even simply at home, sick from too much partying the night before. In case Liam was wrong, there was no need to either increase her worry unnecessarily by telling her his theory about the vamp nest or give her false hope by suggesting that Jesse was at school or at home.

An unwelcome surprise was waiting for Liam outside of his history class, in the form of Cordelia and a burly boy who was shooting threatening grins at a scrawny, pimply freshman, causing him to turn white and scurry away.

"Liam," said Cordelia brightly, but there was also an imperious undercurrent in her voice. She clearly suspected that Liam might try to escape again and was determined not to let him. "There you are. This is Larry, the captain of next year's JV team."

"That's great," said Liam flatly. "I _don't_ play."

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "He keeps saying that," she said in an aside to Larry, "but I don't believe him. I mean, look at him!"

"She's right," said Larry, arms folded across his chest, looking at Liam in an appraising sort of way. "You could be a wide receiver or a running back, easy."

Liam's patience was stretching thinner by the second. "Look, I'm Irish, okay? I don't even _watch_ American football, and I've never played it in my life."

"You can't be Irish," Larry snorted. "Where's the red hair and the Lucky Charms accent?"

Liam had had enough. He made to stride past Larry and Cordelia into his classroom, but Larry moved in front of him, his expression suddenly menacing. "Where do you think you're going, Irish boy? We weren't finished." Liam caught sight of Cordelia's satisfied smirk out of the corner of his eye and realized that she thought she would be able to use Larry to bully him into slotting neatly into the role she expected him to fill at Sunnydale High.

"Get out of my way," he said, fixing Larry with a cold glower. They were the same height—Liam might even have been slightly taller—and Larry was probably about twenty pounds heavier than him, but he'd won enough fights against larger boys in L.A. that he wouldn't have backed down even if he hadn't spent the last five months fighting monsters and demons that could have snapped Larry like a twig.

He could see the uncertainty flash in Larry's eyes in response to his glare, but instead of doing the smart thing and dropping it, Larry reacted with even more aggression. His right hand shot up to seize Liam by the front of his shirt, but before his thick fingers could get within an inch of the black cotton, Liam's hand closed over his wrist. In a split second, he had spun Larry around and pinned him against the wall, holding his arm curled unnaturally behind his back between them. Cordelia shrieked, Larry yelled in pain and anger, and pandemonium broke out amongst the students in the hall who were near enough to see what was going on.

"This your throwing arm?" Liam asked quietly, twisting the arm in question a little more.

"Aargh! Yeah, man, let me go! You're gonna break it!"

"That's up to you," said Liam. "I don't have to have a problem with you as long as you and the other guys on the team stay out of my face. Understand?"

"Yeah! Yeah, fine, we'll leave you alone!" Larry said, his voice choked with pain. Satisfied, Liam released him, and he scrambled away as fast as he could.

With the exception of the sounds of Larry's flight, the corridor was completely silent. Ignoring the other students, Liam adjusted the strap of his bag and walked into class. He would have preferred for his classmates to leave him to himself for reasons other than that they were terrified of him, but in the end, whatever got them to stop staring at him was fine by him. Besides, he strongly suspected that nothing less would have worked on Cordelia, who was now so determined to avoid him that she spent the entire class period perched precariously on the far edge of her seat.

†

Lunchtime did not bring good news. Like the day before, Xander found Liam and Willow where they sat in the courtyard eating the lunches they'd packed at home. Unlike the day before, Jesse was not with him. The moment Willow saw Xander walking towards them alone, she put her half-eaten sandwich down, her face draining of the little color it had.

"I haven't seen Jesse today," said Xander once he was within earshot of them, having correctly interpreted Willow's actions and expression.

"He could just be home sick, couldn't he?" said Willow desperately. "I-if he got there after I called last night?"

"We'll call again after class," said Xander reassuringly.

Liam watched them in silence. He hated this. It wasn't the first time he'd witnessed the kind of fear they were experiencing for their friend. He stood up suddenly, causing both of them to look around at him. "Meet me at the library after school," he said. "You can call Jesse's house from there. If he's not at home, I'll find him."

†

The rest of the school day passed quickly and painlessly enough. Willow and Xander found Liam after the final bell, and he led the way into the library. "Mr. Gallagher! I was hoping you'd drop by; it seems—" Mr. Giles broke off upon noticing Willow and Xander. "Er, hello," he said awkwardly. "Can I help you?"

"They're with me," said Liam. "They know what's going on, and their friend might have been captured."

"Oh, I see," said Mr. Giles. For a second, he looked relieved, but then he froze. "Er, w-when you say they know what's going on—"

"They know about vampires, and that I'm the Slayer."

Mr. Giles gave a stiff, frustrated sort of smile and adjusted his glasses. "Yes, erm, not to put undue strain on the understanding we reached this morning, but you _are_ aware that this is meant to be kept secret, aren't you?"

"One of the vamps I killed was about to attack Willow, and Xander is the reason I got to her in time."

"Ah," said Mr. Giles. "Well, then I suppose it can't be helped. So, yes, you two. Liam is the Slayer, don't tell anyone."

"What's a Slayer?" asked Xander.

His eyes on Mr. Giles, Liam jerked his head in Xander and Willow's direction, then walked over to the table, dropped his bag onto it, and flopped into one of the chairs around it. A little bemused, Mr. Giles nevertheless complied with Liam's silent request to answer Xander's question. "In every generation, a Slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone has the strength and the skill to hunt the vampires and stop the spread of their evil."

Xander gave a cough that may have been hiding a snicker. "I'm sorry," he said when everyone looked at him. "It's just, uh, 'one _girl_ in all the world'? You got something you want to tell us, there, Liam?"

Liam scowled and Willow whacked Xander lightly on the arm, though she looked rather confused herself.

"Liam is in fact something of a break with tradition," said Mr. Giles patiently. "As far as the Watchers' Council is aware, he is the first male Slayer the world has ever seen."

"Oh," said Xander, who was still grinning. "So he's like the 'affirmative action' Slayer."

"Mr. Giles?" said Willow in a slightly louder voice than normal. "Can I use the phone?" This succeeded in sobering Xander up.

"Certainly," said Mr. Giles, waving his hand towards it.

Willow hurried over to the phone and dialed. She stood there twisting the cord around her fingers for a moment, then said, "Hi, Mrs. McNally, i-it's Willow again. Is Jesse home?" Her face fell and she looked at the three men. Xander went pale and Liam sat up straight in his chair, his brow furrowed. "No, he wasn't at school either. We'll let you know as soon as we see him."

By the time Willow hung up, she was on the verge of tears. Liam got to his feet and picked up his things. "I'll find him, okay? As soon as I get my sister home, I'll find that vamp nest and get him out." With that, he strode out of the library.

"If you'd like to help me research in the meantime, I would greatly appreciate it," Mr. Giles offered kindly. She nodded and he led her over to the computer at the far end of the table. "I trust you'll have better luck wresting useful information out of that dread machine than I would," he said, which succeeded in drawing a weak smile from her.

Xander watched them for a moment, indecisive, then followed Liam into the corridor, which was packed with students getting ready to go home.

"What are you doing?" Liam said when Xander caught up with him.

"Coming with you," said Xander.

"No," said Liam flatly, shouldering through a clump of students, leaving Xander behind. But Xander was not to be dismissed so easily. He pushed through and caught up again.

"Why don't you want me to come?" he asked, annoyed.

Without turning around and barely breaking his stride, Liam caught Xander by the arm and pulled, causing him to go flying over Liam's shoulder and land flat on his back on the floor. "_That's_ why," said Liam, and kept walking, leaving a dazed Xander and several astonished witnesses in his wake. Luckily, none of them were teachers.

†

Twenty minutes later, having dropped Kathy off at home, Liam was back at the cemetery. The vampires had been using it to access the nest, he was sure of it. After retrieving the weapons he needed from the trunk of his car, he headed towards the large mausoleum the vampire from the Bronze had been leading Willow to and was pleased to see that the grass in front of it was far more trampled down than it was in the rest of the cemetery. The place obviously got a lot of night traffic.

The door's rusty hinges protested loudly when he pulled it open, but this wasn't a problem, as he could sense that there were no vampires inside. Every surface was covered in dust except for a track on the floor leading straight to a padlocked door at the shadowy far end of the chamber. Liam smirked and walked forward, but he hadn't gone ten paces before that feeling of being watched came over him. He stopped. "How long have you been waiting here?"

"Not too long," said Buffy, stepping out of the shadows with an amused look on her face.

Perhaps it had something to do with the difference in lighting from the previous night, but she was even more beautiful than he remembered. Before he could think of anything to say to her, her expression grew serious and she spoke first. "Did you find anything out about that guy you were looking for?"

"No. That's why I'm here."

She stepped closer, her brows knit in concern. "Be careful, Angel. There are a lot of vampires down there."

"You keep calling me that," he said. "My name's Liam."

She shrugged, her posture relaxing and her eyes dancing mischievously. "It's a good name, but I like 'Angel' better."

"Why?" he asked, genuinely perplexed.

"It suits you." Her smile faded and she nodded in the direction of the door. "You should go and help your friend."

Liam needed no further encouragement. Ignoring the little voice in his head that accused him of showing off, he kicked the door open. He heard her call "Good luck!" as he descended the stairs beyond it, and then he was alone in the electrical tunnels. He didn't know what to make of Buffy's nickname for him. Before his mother had been killed, she had called him "my little angel" whenever he'd done something nice for her without being asked, but he sincerely hoped Buffy's reason wasn't that cutesy. Ideally, she had decided that he reminded her of the angel in the Bible who wielded a flaming sword.

He hadn't been walking along the tunnel for a whole minute when he heard footsteps approaching from behind. "Hey, Van Helsing, wait up!"

Liam closed his eyes and ground his teeth together. "I told you not to come."

"Too bad," said Xander as he drew level with him.

"I should have knocked you out," Liam snarled.

"Yeah, well, you're gonna have to!" said Xander defiantly.

Liam looked around at him, slightly taken aback.

"Jesse's my best friend, okay? I can't just sit around at home and wait for someone else to save him."

Liam stared at Xander's determined face for a long moment, then nodded shortly and handed him a stake.

The quiet understanding between the two boys didn't last, however. "So, anything else I should know about vampires before we run into some of them?" said Xander.

Liam didn't answer. The only weapon Xander had available to him was the stake, which he already knew how to use from watching Liam the night before, so what would be the point of explaining the rest of it now? Besides, he could feel the first cold, tingling hints of his vamp sense running up and down his spine the farther they walked. Chatting could give away their position to keen vampire ears.

"You're _really_ not big on talking, are you?" said Xander once several seconds had passed in silence.

"Quiet!" said Liam sharply. "We're getting close." As it always did, his adrenaline rose along with the hairs on the back of his neck as the cold tingles intensified. He hadn't sensed this many vampires nearby since he fought alongside the gang in L.A. His entire body coursed with anticipation of battle, and he drew a second stake from his inner jacket pocket.

They came upon a place where another tunnel met theirs. Unlike theirs, which was dimly lit with a series of lamps protruding from the close walls and low ceiling, this one contained only a couple of working lights, so it was almost pitch black. Liam could sense that the actual nest was farther down the tunnel in which they'd been walking, but that a few vampires also waited in this second tunnel, just out of sight. His mind raced towards some fairly unpleasant conclusions. Unless the vampires in the second tunnel were returning from some errand, he doubted that their presence there was a coincidence.

He held up a hand, and Xander, who finally seemed to appreciate the danger of the situation and the need for extreme caution, halted at once. "Wait here," he said. "Anything that moves, if it's not me, put that stake through its heart." Xander nodded, his eyes wide, and retreated a few steps to wait against the wall right before the corner where the two tunnels met, while Liam disappeared into the gloom of the second tunnel.

Within thirty seconds, Xander could hear bangs and inhuman roars coming from somewhere just beyond his field of vision. Two minutes later, just when he was starting to feel like he should either go back or try to help, he heard footsteps jogging towards him. His heart leapt into his throat, but then Liam materialized out of the dark tunnel.

"Jesse _is_ here," he said when he reached Xander, brushing dust off his clothes with his stake-free hand.

"What, did you torture that out of one of the vampires down there?" Xander asked jokingly.

Liam did not reply, he merely spared Xander one grim look before continuing to walk down the first tunnel.

"How many were there?"

"Three," said Liam.

"What were they doing down that tunnel?"

"Waiting to box us in."

"But…," said Xander, his mouth going dry, "but that means they knew we were coming."

"Starting to regret following me down here?"

Xander swallowed hard, then shook his head ruefully. "Maybe I'm insane, but no." He looked sideways at Liam. "This is pretty much an everyday thing for you, isn't it?"

Liam made a noise that almost sounded like a chuckle. "Welcome to my life."

†

"For they will gather and be gathered," Mr. Giles muttered. "From the Vessel pours life…pours life..."

"D-did you find something?" asked Willow, glancing up from her computer.

He jumped slightly, having almost forgotten that she was in the library. "Er, yes, I believe so," he said, getting up with his book and walking over to her, then laying it down on the table next to her keyboard so she could see the relevant passage and the unsettling illustration that went with it. "This seems to be what the Harvest is about. The Master—a, er, a very old vampire who got himself trapped in the Hellmouth several decades back when he tried to open it—h-he will make one of his followers into his proxy, his Vessel. If the Vessel feeds on enough people, then it will free the Master and open the Hellmouth."

"'On the night of the crescent moon, the first before the equinox it will come'," Willow read, before looking up at Mr. Giles in alarm. "But that's tonight!"

†

Their pace more urgent now that they knew the vampires had expected them, Liam and Xander rounded a corner and nearly tripped over Jesse, who was lying on the floor of the tunnel where his leg was shackled to the wall, and who jumped to his feet at the sight of them, brandishing a pipe.

"Jesse!" said Xander in relief.

"Xander!" said Jesse. The pipe clattered to the cement floor as the two friends hugged tightly.

"Jesse, man, are you okay?"

"I am not okay on an _epic _scale. We've gotta get out of here."

"It's cool, new guy's a superhero."

Liam paid them no attention. His vamp sense was now going haywire. He might have cleared the path for their retreat, but there were still a _lot_ of vampires lurking nearby in the tunnels. Definitely more than he could handle on his own if he also had to look out for a couple of guys with little to no fighting experience. He bent down to wrench the shackles open and free Jesse, but his wrist brushed Jesse's ankle in the process, and he jumped back up, his eyes narrowing.

"What?" said Jesse and Xander together, both looking bewildered.

"This is what," said Liam, whipping out a wooden cross and slapping it to Jesse's chest.

Jesse yelled and leapt back, vampiric features replacing his human ones. Xander staggered away from him in horror, but when Liam raised his stake, he lunged forward and caught hold of his arm. "No!"

Before Liam could push Xander aside and finish the job, the air was filled with the sounds of growling. Their time had run out. "Come on!" he said, grabbing a handful of Xander's jacket and half-dragging him back the way they'd come.

At first, he practically had to haul Xander along, as he was fighting tooth and nail to get back to Jesse, but then they heard a loud _snap_ of metal breaking apart, accompanied by Jesse's laughter. Next came the sounds of multiple pairs of feet running their way, as well as more growling. Liam forced Xander ahead of him and pulled a vial of holy water out of the pocket of his jeans. "Keep going!" he yelled to Xander, before whirling to face the approaching vampires. He waited until they were only a few yards away, then unstoppered the vial and flung the contents in an arc across the tunnel at eye level. It caught the first four vampires full in the face. They fell back in agony, tripping up the others, including Jesse.

Hoping this had bought them enough time, Liam turned back and kept running. It didn't take long to catch up with Xander, whose lack of supernatural strength made him a much slower runner, but they still had a decent lead on the vampires when they caught sight of the staircase that led up to the mausoleum. A pale hand snatched at Liam's leg when he was halfway up the stairs, but he kicked out viciously, and his foot connected squarely with the offending vampire's temple, causing him to crumple to the floor. They made it into the mausoleum itself with at least four vampires hot on their heels and more just behind them.

At last, they barreled through the outer doors, flooding the interior of the mausoleum with bright sunlight. The vampires that had been inches from them screeched in pain and turned back, trying to escape the fatal rays of the late afternoon sun. Most made it into the shadows in time, but the unlucky two who had been the fastest runners burst into flames before they could get clear and were reduced to ash within seconds.

†

Willow looked up hopefully when she heard the squeak of the library doors opening, then jumped to her feet at the sight of Liam and Xander. "Did you find Jesse?" she asked before either of them could say a word. She didn't see their expressions because she was too busy looking around them for a sign of Jesse. Mr. Giles noticed, however, and was regarding them with sympathy and regret.

"Yeah," said Xander hollowly.

Willow's eyes snapped onto him. "Is he okay?"

"They turned him into one of them, Willow," said Liam. "I'm sorry."

She sank unsteadily back into her chair, her eyes glassy. There was a loud bang from the other side of the library. Xander had aimed a violent kick at the photocopier. When the other three stared at him, he shrugged. "I don't like vampires," he said. "I'm gonna take a stand and say they're not good."

"What about you?" said Liam, who couldn't bear to look at either of his classmates anymore, so fixed his gaze on Mr. Giles instead. "What did you find out?"

"Er, q-quite a lot, actually," said Mr. Giles, "and none of it encouraging." He then went on to explain about the Harvest, the Vessel, and what would happen if they failed to stop it. "Unless, of course, you happened to eliminate the Vessel when you attacked the nest?" he concluded hopefully.

"No. I didn't even come close to cleaning out all the vamps in those tunnels," said Liam, "and none of the ones I went up against were very powerful. The Vessel's still out there, plus a lot of backup."

"Then we'll have to find out where they're planning to go, and within the…," Mr. Giles checked his watch, "ten minutes of daylight that remain."

"They'll go to the Bronze," said Xander.

"Are you sure?" said Willow.

"Come on, all those tasty young morsels all over the place?"

Liam nodded. "Good. Let's go."

"Hey," said Xander, "if Jesse's there too…."

"Then he's getting a stake in his heart like he should have back in the tunnel."

Xander's face contorted in anger. "You know what? Maybe if this had ever happened to someone _you_ care about, you wouldn't be so eager to kill my friend!"

Before he could do anything else, Liam had seized him by the throat and slammed him against the door of the book cage. "You don't know what the _hell_ you're talking about," he growled. Hands shaking slightly, he released Xander, snatched his bag off the table, and stormed out of the library.

"W-what did he mean?" asked Willow, still staring at the doors through which Liam had departed.

"When Liam was eleven," said Mr. Giles quietly, "his mother and twin sister were killed by vampires." Willow turned horrified eyes on Mr. Giles, and Xander seemed to wilt where he stood. "And less than a month ago, the same happened to his first Watcher. Do try to tread more lightly around him in future with those sorts of topics."

"Come on," said Xander eventually. "If Liam's on his way to the Bronze to stop this thing, we should help him."

†

Liam wanted to simply jump in the GTX and drive straight to the Bronze, but when he approached the parking lot, he realized that it was not going to be that simple. It seemed that the football team trained after school during the off-season, and today's workout must have finished shortly after Liam and Xander got back from the cemetery, because two large boys in Sunnydale High gym clothes were standing on either side of the GTX. The light from the setting sun glinted off objects the boys held in their hands, and the car sat a few inches lower than it usually did.

"Hey look, there he is!" said one of the boys, pointing at Liam. He was the shorter of the two and had red hair and freckles.

The other boy, who was taller, leaner, and blond, looked around. His dull face cracked into a wicked grin. "It's a shame about your tires, man," he said, walking around the car to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his teammate.

"Larry put you up to this?" Liam asked, his eyes narrowed.

"He didn't have to," said the redhead. "You mess with one guy on the team, you mess with the whole team."

"I guess so," said Liam. He didn't have time for an extended face-off. The sun had already almost completely disappeared beneath the horizon. The Harvest would start any minute, and he now had to get to the Bronze on foot.

He moved so quickly that neither of the football players had time to react. In a second, he darted forward, snatched the long hunting knife out of the blond boy's hand and the switchblade out of the redhead's, then resumed his previous position.

"What the—how did you—," spluttered the blond.

"What, you think you're going to use those on us?" mocked the redhead, who was quicker to recover from his surprise.

"No," said Liam, flipping the switchblade closed while he pointed at them with the hunting knife. "I think you're going to go to the auto parts shop and buy me new tires."

"Yeah right," the taller one sneered. "Why would we do that?"

"Because you really don't want to find out what it's like to be on my bad side," said Liam. His tone was perfectly casual, but as he spoke, he broke the blade off the hunting knife with the thumb of his right hand and, with his left hand, crushed the switchblade into a useless lump of metal shaped like the inside of his fist. He tossed what remained of their knives back at them with enough force that they staggered back a little when they caught them, and said, "I have somewhere to be, and thanks to you, I'm going to be late." He bent to pick up the blade of the hunting knife and began bending it idly around his fingers. "So when I get back, these tires had better be replaced. Then we can forget any of this ever happened, and I won't have to mess with anyone else on the team."

†

Buffy had crept into the electrical tunnels not long after Liam (just in time to avoid being seen by the black-haired boy who had followed him). She'd been prepared to help fight off the vampires in the tunnels if Liam and the other boy got into too much trouble, but that had proven unnecessary. She had felt the surge of energy within her that always accompanied sunset about five minutes ago, and she had watched about eight vampires head above ground as soon as it was finally safe to do so, including Darla, Luke, and a fledgling who fit the description of Liam's missing friend. As soon as they were gone, she hurried along the familiar tunnels until she reached the place where they joined the old sewer system from before the earthquake sixty years ago.

She was now no more than thirty yards from the church in which the Master was trapped. She hadn't been in such close proximity to her sire since before she was cursed. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, but it couldn't be helped. If Liam failed to stop Luke before the Harvest was over, then she would be here, ready to stop the Master from reaching the surface while his minions weren't around to help him.

"Almost there! Give me more!" The distant sound of the voice she hadn't heard in over a century made her jump, and terror washed over her. What was happening? Had the ritual begun? Where was Liam? She clutched her stake with trembling hands, trying to focus on what she might have to do rather than letting her fear for the Slayer overwhelm her.

†

Liam reached the Bronze at almost exactly the same time as Mr. Giles, Willow, and Xander, the first of whom looked very alarmed to see him still outside the building. "Why are you just getting here now?" he asked. "You left the library early enough. The Harvest must already have started!"

"Couple of idiots slashed the tires of my car," said Liam. "I had to run."

Xander tried the door, with no luck. "They've sealed it," he said. "How do we get in?"

"I'll go for the roof. You three try around back," said Liam, and, not wasting another second, he jumped up and caught hold of the ten-foot-high bottom rung of the ladder that led to the roof and climbed as quickly as he could. The hatch next to the ventilation duct in the center of the roof was neither locked nor barricaded. Liam dropped through it and landed, catlike and silent, on the second level of the club. He could hear the frightened mutters and whimpers of the dozens of trapped humans, as well as a deep, joyous voice giving what sounded like a fanatical speech.

There was one vampire standing on the upper level with Liam, his yellow eyes fixed on the stage. It was easy for Liam to creep up behind him and plunge a stake into his back, clapping his other hand over the fanged mouth to hold in the roar of pain. He looked through the settling dust over the railing, his eyes drawn by the screams of the Vessel's next victim. It was Cordelia. He had a brief instant in which to groan inwardly at the thought that saving her life was going to undo everything he'd done to shake her interest in him.

But then his eyes fell on the enormous vampire whose arms she was trying to escape. Blood surged into his head, hammering in his ears and tinting his vision with scarlet. He had seen that face before, on the night when his carefree childhood had come to a brutal end.

His body went into autopilot. He jumped the railing and landed on the pool table on the first level. This distracted the Vessel from Cordelia. He laughed. "Come to offer yourself up in place of the girl?" He loosened his hold enough that she was able to push out of his arms and run from the stage. "Very well. The blood of a fighter is always stronger than the blood of a terrified waif." His eyes found the stake clenched in Liam's fist and he laughed again. "And not just any fighter! You're the Slayer boy."

One of the henchman vampires came charging up to Liam on his right as he hopped down from the pool table. Not taking his eyes off the Vessel, Liam rammed his stake through the rushing vampire's chest.

The club's patrons were making a fair amount of noise, but he was deaf to it. "It was you," he said. Then, in a louder voice, "June fifteenth, nineteen ninety-two. Faith and Julia Gallagher. _It was you!_" The last of his control snapped on the final word, and he tore towards the stage, leapt up onto it, and hurled himself at the Vessel. Forgotten was his habit of going for the kill at the earliest possible opening. He _would_ kill this vampire, oh yes, but first he would make him _hurt_.

Though initially caught off-guard by the ferocity of Liam's opening attack, the Vessel was quick to rally and retaliate, throwing Liam off with enough force that he fell back onto the cardboard boxes piled in the back corner of the stage. Wiping blood from his now broken nose, the vampire stalked towards Liam, his grin firmly in place. "Interesting," he said. "It would appear that we killed the wrong twin after all. A mistake that will soon be corrected."

Liam picked himself back up, and he and his enemy circled each other. "All this time," he spat, "I thought it was a coincidence that destroyed my family. That if only we hadn't gone to the beach that night, it never would have happened."

"No, boy. Your family was destroyed for the glory of the Master—removed, as all obstacles in his path shall be removed." The Vessel spread his hands wide, an exultant expression on his face. "As I shall remove you."

The red haze pulsing in Liam's vision expanded, so that now he seemed to be peering at the vampire through deep crimson lenses. He didn't care what injuries he sustained—he was hardly even conscious of them. He had forgotten about the greater stakes of this fight, the Harvest and the Hellmouth waiting to open. All that mattered was that this creature had deliberately taken his mother and sister from him, had left his father a broken shell of a man who no longer knew how to be a dad, had tortured Kathy with nightmares every night for the last four and a half years.

They were locked together, the huge vampire and the skinny teenager, each punching whatever part of the other he could reach. Liam's rage made up for his size disadvantage, but it also cost him some of the mental clarity he needed to predict and counter his opponent's moves. He overstretched on one punch, granting the vampire an opening he didn't waste. The next second, Liam was pinned against the back wall of the club with a cold hand clamped around his throat.

"Now, you will die," said the vampire, "and the Master will walk free." He moved in for the bite, but then stumbled away, his face contorting in shock and pain, the extra stake Liam had hidden in his back pocket lodged between his ribs. In the seconds before the Vessel turned to dust, Liam leaned towards him. "You'll see your master again soon," he promised, and ripped the stake back out.

It took a long moment for Liam to master himself enough to tear his eyes away from the pile of dust at his feet. When he did, he was slightly surprised to find that the club was empty except for Willow, Xander, and Mr. Giles.

* * *

Okay, so, the football team basically serves the same purpose in this fic that Cordelia's gang of popular rich girls did in canon. Hence Liam scaring the crap out of Larry and later his buddies instead of accidentally almost staking Cordelia at the Bronze, like Buffy did in "Welcome to the Hellmouth". I hope nobody thinks Liam would actually follow through on his threats. He knows better than to abuse his Slayer powers like that, but he is very determined for everyone to leave him alone. He had to take the threats to kind of an extreme in order for them to actually do him any good. The guys he threatens have to be too scared of him to want to risk retaliation (especially group retaliation). It's as much for their sakes as for his own. He doesn't want the hassle of dealing with jerks like them on a regular basis, and he also doesn't want to be forced into a position where he might lose his temper and permanently injure someone. I actually had to research football positions for this chapter. Apparently different body types are required for different positions. Who knew! (Hint: not me. I couldn't care less about football, so I never bothered to figure out how it works.) As previously established, Liam is so gung-ho about his Slayer calling that he's come into the rest of his abilities a lot faster than Buffy did in canon, especially the ability to sense vampires nearby. That can do interesting things to scenes like the attempted rescue of Jesse. (And in case you didn't catch it, he realized Jesse was a vampire because of how cold his ankle was when he bent down to break the manacle open. He couldn't specifically sense that Jesse was a vampire because there were so many other vampires down there.) And then there's that reveal at the end. *evil laughter* Oh, final note: I hiked up Willow's emotional responses to Jesse's predicament in this chapter because I always felt the show kind of just carelessly tossed Jesse away. In my story, he means a lot to Willow and Xander, and his loss will be felt beyond this chapter.


	6. All the Right Friends

Ha! Like I said in the "Finding Joy" author's note, my writing notebook for my Advanced Fiction class is really giving me tons of opportunities to get my fanfiction written, and it actually counts for a grade! So yeah, I had time to crank out another chapter of this one over the weekend. I won't always be following the events of canon so closely, but it's up to the characters when the story will diverge enough that things don't match up with the real episodes anymore. That being said, here's the first half of "The Witch", if Angel had been the Slayer and Buffy had been the vampire with a soul.

* * *

The vampire's head slammed against the rough granite of the mausoleum and his yellow eyes went unfocused until Liam's fist collided with his left cheek. He growled and tried to retaliate, but Liam blocked the punch and rammed a stake into his chest. The vampire roared with pain, but quickly realized that he wasn't turning to dust. He looked down at the stake, which was about two inches too far to the right to be fatal to him, then leered triumphantly up at Liam. "You missed."

Liam's eyes were icy, but his lips twitched up in a smile. He leaned slightly closer. "I know," he said. He seized the end of the stake and gave it a sudden, vicious twist. The vampire screamed in agony and tried to fight Liam off, but to little effect. Within seconds, Liam had him on the ground, one arm dislocated and the other twisted to the breaking point behind his back.

"Okay, now you're going to tell me everything you know about the murders of Julia and Faith Gallagher. The faster you talk, the faster I put you out of your misery."

"Who the hell are Julia and Faith Gallagher?" snarled the vampire.

Liam felt the rage that had consumed him when he fought the Vessel begin to well up in him again. He took the hand of the arm he was coiling behind the vampire's back and squeezed it so tightly that the bones in the palm snapped like twigs beneath his fingers. The vampire screamed again. "They were my mother and sister," he spat. "Before I killed the Vessel, he said that my family was destroyed for the glory of the Master. What did he mean?"

"I don't know, okay? The Master has a lot of people killed. I've never bothered to keep track!"

"Then I guess you're all out of bargaining chips," said Liam, pulling out another stake and stabbing him through the back with it. This time, it did pierce the heart, and with one last roar, the vampire turned to dust, leaving Liam alone and seething with anger.

Or, at least, he thought he was alone. He didn't register that hair-raising feeling on the back of his neck until he heard Buffy speak. "Wow. Didn't think torture was your style," she said lightly as she walked around the side of the mausoleum.

Liam didn't take his eyes off the spot where the vampire had been. "I found one of the vampires who killed Mum and Faith," he said. "But the other one is still out there somewhere. I'm going to find her, too, and I'm going to rip her head off with my bare hands." He looked defiantly at Buffy when she didn't say anything in response to this. "Aren't you going to tell me I shouldn't talk like that? Or lecture me about how torturing vampires for information makes me no better than them?"

"No, I'm not," she said, her face impassive. "You're a human being. You have a soul, you have free will, and even your very worst nature could never come close to the kind of evil every vampire has at the core of its being. No matter what methods you sink to, you will always be better than them."

Liam was struck, not only by a squirming guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach (which he ignored), but also by the profoundly forlorn look that grew in Buffy's eyes as she spoke. "Did vampires kill someone you care about too?" he asked quietly.

A flicker of something he couldn't identify clouded her expression before it was obscured by pain. "Yes," she said. "My parents and my little sister."

"I'm sorry," he said, taking a step towards her.

She nodded, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. Then she said, "I won't stop you from doing whatever it takes to find the vampire who killed your mom and sister, because I know I'd be doing the exact same thing if it were me." She chuckled bitterly. "I actually envy you, in a way. The one who killed my family is long gone. Revenge isn't even an option for me." She fixed him with a rather piercing look all of a sudden. "But even though I won't stop you, I will remind you that you have other responsibilities."

He turned abruptly away from her and began to storm off in the direction of the cemetery's gates, mouth shut tight and jaw muscles working hard. He didn't want to hear any of this. She was undeterred, however, and continued in a slightly raised voice. "You can't chase revenge full time, Angel. You're the Slayer. The second you set foot in this town, you became its first, best line of defense against the Hellmouth, and vampires aren't the only type of evil it attracts. Don't lose sight of what you were chosen to do."

Liam whirled back around, an angry retort on his lips, but she was nowhere to be found.

†

Xander and Willow stood together next to a creek that ran through the woods on the edge of Sunnydale, a place where they had spent many hours playing as children. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. The weather was warmer than it had been in months, and there was a definite feeling of spring in the air. Xander held a lighter in one hand and Willow was carefully taping a photograph of Jesse to an origami boat.

"How about that time when we were nine or ten, and his parents took us all to go see the Redwood forest?" said Xander.

"Yeah," said Willow. "We pretended to be woodland elves, because I'd just finished reading _The Hobbit_." She fell silent for a moment, thinking. "Oh, and the time in eighth grade when we were all in a group and we were supposed to be working on our science project, but you and Jesse just kept having lightsaber duels with the yardsticks while I did all the work by myself."

"And when we got an A+ on that project, Jesse and I made it up to you with all of our Halloween candy."

Willow's reminiscent smile was very brittle. "And what about when…when—" But she couldn't go on. Her lip quivered for a few seconds while she tried to stay in control, but then her face crumpled and tears streaked her cheeks. "I ca-an't believe he's go-one, Xander. I miss him so much. A-and we can't even te-ell his family what ha-happened to him. They'll report him m-missing, a-and they might keep looking for him for ye-ears and years."

Xander drew her into a hug, feeling his own eyes burning. "I know, Wil. I can't remember a time when I didn't know him. This is the best we can do for him, and it sucks."

Willow pulled away, wiping her eyes. She held up the boat. "R-ready?" she asked.

Xander nodded. They crouched down at the edge of the creek, and Willow held the boat out over the water. Xander flicked the lighter and set the flame to the boat's prow. Once it caught, Willow released it. The flames spread rapidly as the current carried it away, and they reached the picture by the time the boat floated around a bend and was lost to view.

"I'm going to help Liam fight those things, Willow," said Xander after a long moment of silence. "Nobody else should have to go through what Jesse's family is going through. Nobody else should have to put a stake through his best friend's heart. I want to do what I can to make sure it doesn't happen."

"I'll help too," said Willow, her resolve making her voice much stronger than before. "Liam shouldn't have to face all of them alone."

†

"No," said Liam flatly.

"Why not?" said Willow as she and Xander pursued him through the bookstacks.

"We want to help you kill vampires," said Xander. "What's wrong with that?"

Having located the book he was looking for, Liam pulled it from the shelf and kept walking, still not looking at either of them. "You'll get yourselves killed," he said. "That's what's wrong with that."

"I just had to kill a demon wearing my best friend's face!" said Xander angrily. "Nothing I do to help you will ever be that hard."

This made Liam pause, and Willow pressed their advantage. "We know what's out there now," she said. "We can't do nothing while more people get killed. We won't."

Liam turned around to face them both. "This life chose me," he began.

"And we're choosing it," said Xander before he could get any further. "Are you telling me that if you had found out the truth about your mom and sister, and you weren't the Slayer, you wouldn't have wanted to do something about it?"

Liam glared at him for a long moment. "Of course I would, and then I would have gotten myself killed. You're _not_ helping me." And with that, he stalked away, gripping his book tightly enough to damage the spine, leaving the pair of them staring after him in silent frustration.

†

As they hadn't troubled to keep their voices down, Mr. Giles had overheard bits and pieces of Willow and Xander's efforts to persuade Liam to let them help him. Musing dryly that it was lucky nobody else had come into the library before school that morning, he picked up his mug of tea and emerged from his office in time to see Willow and Xander leaving, both looking very upset. A few seconds later, Liam came out of the stacks, nose buried in a book he couldn't possibly want for pleasure reading or school work.

"You've been in here quite often since the Harvest," he observed. Liam had spent large portions of both Saturday and Sunday in the library searching these books, but he had been in an even less approachable mood then than he was now, so Mr. Giles had let him carry on without saying anything to him.

Liam's only response was a noncommittal grunt, and he kept reading without looking up.

"If there's something in particular you're looking for, I am rather familiar with these books. I could help you find it."

"This is something I have to do on my own," said Liam tersely, taking a seat at the study table.

"Yes, I noticed you seem to have taken that stance."

"You mean Xander and Willow? I won't let them risk their lives when they don't have to."

"To be honest, I feel more comfortable without getting them involved, as well," Mr. Giles admitted. "But there are plenty of perfectly safe ways for them to be useful, you know. If helping could bring them solace after the death of their friend, are you really going to deny them that?"

"There's nothing safe about a couple of normal high school kids trying to help the Slayer on the Hellmouth. Jesse knew me all of a day before they turned him as a way to get to me. If Willow and Xander knew what was good for them, they'd avoid me like the plague and grieve in the safety of their own homes."

"Don't you think you're being a bit melodramatic?" said Mr. Giles. "You're the Slayer, not a walking death omen."

Liam put the book down and rubbed a hand over his face. "Is there really a difference?" he muttered.

Mr. Giles felt a rush of sympathy for the boy. It was admirable how seriously he took his calling, but he put so much on himself. "I should think there's all the difference in the world to the people you've saved," he said. "All of Sunnydale already owes you their lives, and you haven't even been here a week. I'd wager the same can probably be said of the citizens of Los Angeles."

Liam closed his eyes. Mr. Giles couldn't know what memories his words had brought to the forefront of his thoughts. He could see Mr. Merrick's face in his mind, the angry red flush blotching his cheeks and forehead and the bristling of his walrus mustache as he shouted at Liam for his recklessness in hunting every night, as Liam flatly refused to obey his orders to be more cautious time and again, and then, the grayish-white pallor of that same face as the life drained out of it on the floor of the Hemery High School gym.

"Liam, is everything all right?"

"Huh?" said Liam blankly. It took a second or two of staring at Mr. Giles's face before he really saw it. He shook himself. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Are you certain you haven't been overtaxing yourself lately? You look exhausted."

"I'm fine," Liam said again, a little more forcefully. "I've just spent more time hunting than usual the past few nights."

"Perhaps you should give yourself a bit of a break. If something really nasty turns up, you'll want to be in top form."

Liam didn't know whether to chuckle or roll his eyes. First Buffy, now Mr. Giles. Who would be the next one to tell him he was doing this wrong? Didn't they understand how important this was? Why should it matter to anyone how much time he devoted to it if every vampire dusted potentially meant hundreds—perhaps even thousands—of lives spared in the future? His own sleep schedule meant little next to that.

The five-minute bell rang then, and Liam quickly gathered his things and left for his first class.

†

Willow and Xander seemed to have agreed not to bring up that morning's argument until they could regroup and attack from a different angle. Willow pretended nothing had happened when they were in English together, and Xander said nothing about it at lunch—though, about ten minutes into the hour-long lunch period, he unceremoniously dumped the remainder of his cafeteria food into the trash and dragged both of the other two with their partially finished brown bag lunches to the gym. Willow took a seat in the bleachers next to him willingly enough, but when Liam realized that he was about to become a spectator to cheerleader tryouts, he wished he'd put up more of a fight. Still, just because he was physically here didn't mean he had to watch any of it. He sat next to Willow, pulled out the book he'd been reading in the library earlier, and buried his nose in it while he finished his tuna fish sandwich and drank the rest of his apple juice.

When Willow suddenly jumped down from their bench a moment and left him there with Xander, he looked up to see where she was going, but she had only walked a short distance away talk to a girl with dirty blonde hair who was in the line to try out. "Who's that?" he asked.

"Oh, that's Amber," said Xander. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone bend like that."

Liam looked around at Xander and realized that he was staring in a rather slack-jawed fashion at a girl at the front of the line, who was currently doing some warm-up stretches. Liam scowled. "Not her," he said, "the one Willow's talking to."

"Oh," said Xander, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from Amber just long enough to see who Liam meant. "That's Amy. She's Willow's friend. Haven't seen her in a while, though. Kinda surprised that she's in line to try out."

"Why?"

"She's always been pretty firmly in the lack-of-school-spirit camp. Big part of why she and Willow get along so well."

"Oh." Liam left Xander to his ogling and went back to reading. If he had paid attention for a few more seconds, he would have seen Cordelia closing in on him.

"It's sweet of you to come and support me during tryouts, Liam," she said.

Liam gritted his teeth. Just as he had feared, all the work he'd done last week to get rid of her had indeed been undone when he saved her life at the Bronze. He'd had enough trouble avoiding her in History when she tried to be his partner for a group assignment. It didn't even seem to bother her that nearly everyone but Willow and Xander was still giving him such a wide berth everywhere he went that it was as if they thought he was radioactive.

Oblivious as ever to Liam's unwillingness to interact with her, Cordelia shot a scathing glance over at Amy and Willow. "Of course, some people are doomed to fail no matter how much support they have, while others have actual talent." Amy happened to glance around then and catch sight of the daggers Cordelia was shooting at her with her eyes. She jumped a little and hastily turned back to face Willow again.

Liam refused to dignify Cordelia's words with a verbal response. He merely scowled at her and went back to reading. "You know," said Xander once she had walked out of earshot and rejoined the line, "some girls are actually turned on by the aloof approach. Nice job."

Liam turned his scowl on Xander, who was now watching one of the other girls warming up with great interest.

"I'm pretty sure he's trying to get rid of her, Xander," said Willow as she reclaimed her spot between them.

"And that's obviously working," Xander snorted. "Ooh! Amber's up!"

Once again, Liam returned to his book. The passage he was in now actually had the potential to be relevant, for a change. The book contained a record of the Master and the lore surrounding him, but most of it was just about the distant past. This passage, however, mentioned a prophecy about the end of the Master's time. He read on eagerly, but there didn't seem to be anything else about this prophecy in the following paragraphs.

He had just turned the page when many of the people in the gym started screaming. He looked up and saw that Amber's hands had somehow caught fire while she was in the middle of her routine. In an instant, Liam was out of the bleachers and sprinting towards her. Both of her hands were fully engulfed in fire by the time he reached her. He whipped off his jacket and used it to smother the flames.

After he was sure the fire was completely put out, he stuck around until the paramedics arrived, then headed straight to the library. To his chagrin, Xander and Willow followed.

"What could have made that happen?" asked Willow.

"I dunno," said Xander. "I bet Giles could get us a few leads, though."

"I already told you guys I don't want your help," said Liam.

"You said you don't want us fighting _vampires_," said Xander. "And since it's broad daylight and vampires can't make people burst into flames, we're free to help if we want to."

Liam glared at them both, but it had no effect. Willow looked very nervous, but just as determined as Xander. "Fine!" he said through clenched teeth. "But leave anything dangerous to me."

†

As unwilling as Liam had been to let Willow and Xander help him discover the cause of Amber's mishap, he had to admit to himself while watching them toss theories around with Mr. Giles that there were benefits to this that he hadn't considered. Mr. Giles already seemed far less concerned with his methods than he had been that morning, and maybe they could get to the bottom of this faster so that he could go back to concentrating everything on finding that vampire. The longer their discussion went on, the more his attention waned. He barely listened when Willow volunteered to hack into the school's records and find out if Amber had any history of rage that could point to spontaneous combustion and Xander offered to talk to her friends.

†

That night, once Kathy was asleep, Liam sneaked out of the house to go hunting as usual. He did a brief sweep of the cemetery, but the vampires were starting to avoid the mausoleum tunnel entrance now that they knew he was likely to be lying in wait nearby, so he decided to patrol elsewhere until they dropped their guard again. Unfortunately, that meant there was no guarantee that he'd find vampires from the Master's nest, because he wasn't about to give them an opportunity to corner him in the sewers as they had tried to do when he was down there with Xander. This was only a problem because vampires affiliated with the Master were the only ones who might have some of the information he needed about why his mother and sister were killed. Sure enough, though he found and dusted four vampires in Sunnydale's back alleys and the warehouse district, none of them knew anything.

He was just about to concede defeat and head home when he felt that telltale tingle up the back of his neck. "Okay," he said with a wry smirk, "at the cemetery, it made sense, but how did you find me this time?"

"Call it intuition," said Buffy, stepping out of the shadows.

"The same intuition that made you warn me about other kinds of evil than vampires on the Hellmouth?"

She looked intrigued. "I wasn't expecting that to pan out so quickly. What happened?"

"A girl caught fire in the middle of cheerleader tryouts." He spoke casually, but it was a front he was barely managing to hold onto. The back-of-the-neck prickle that announced Buffy's presence was starting to be accompanied by unsettling lurches of his insides. The girls trying out for the cheerleading squad had all been very pretty, and they may have held Xander spellbound, but in Liam's book, none of them could hold a candle to this mysterious, beautiful girl who knew so much about Slayers and refused to call him by his actual name. And it was more than that. She'd lost her family to vampires, too. They were kindred spirits, she and he. "Any idea what could cause something like that?" he said.

"Oh, could be anything," she said, shrugging. "Pyrokinesis, witchcraft, spontaneous combustion. I'm guessing you've ruled out the possibility that someone just set her on fire without using supernatural methods."

"She was dancing alone in the middle of the gym floor with about a hundred pairs of eyes on her," he said. "Would have been pretty difficult to manage that without anyone noticing."

"And there hasn't been anything else like this?"

"Not so far."

"It'll be hard to know for sure what happened, then."

†

Xander and Willow met Liam in the library the next day at lunchtime to compare notes about Amber, but none of them had learned anything useful. All of Amber's friends had told Xander various versions the same thing: Amber was a nice girl who dedicated herself to sports and even had dreams of the Olympics. The records Willow had accessed made no mention of her having a history of rage. In fact, the only thing marring them at all was the time she had been written up for smoking cigarettes.

The bell to signal the end of lunch rang, and the three of them left the library. Liam headed for his locker, his mind already back on vampires. There had to be some way he could get one of them to talk. When he passed the trophy case, he hesitated. Amy was standing there staring at something inside it, and she looked like she was crying. The recluse in Liam wanted to pretend he hadn't noticed and keep going, but he couldn't just see a girl crying and not try to do something about it.

Feeling very awkward, he approached her, hands fidgeting with the strap of his bag. "Hey, you okay?" he asked.

Amy started and looked around at him, then recoiled a little, reminding him forcefully of the first time he had approached Willow in the courtyard the week before.

"What?" he said, perplexed.

"Well, uh, aren't you going out with Cordelia?" she said.

"No!" It came out rather more loudly than he intended. How was it that Cordelia could manage to ruin his social life when he didn't even want one in the first place? "Uh, no," he tried again at a more normal decibel level. He felt extremely sheepish. "She kind of won't leave me alone. She hasn't been telling people we're going out, has she?"

"No, you just seemed pretty close in History and yesterday in the gym," said Amy, now much more relaxed. She even offered a weak smile.

Liam looked at her shrewdly. "Has she been giving you a hard time, or something?"

"No worse than usual," she said, finally wiping her eyes.

"Then why were you crying?"

Amy looked down. "Just got out of the rescheduled tryouts."

"How were they?" said Liam, realizing a second too late that it was the wrong question to ask.

"I was a disaster," she said miserably. She glanced over at the trophy case. Liam followed her gaze to a cheerleading trophy and a picture of a squad of cheerleaders hoisting a girl with auburn hair on their shoulders. "That's my mom," said Amy before he could ask. "Her nickname was 'Catherine the Great'. That was the only year Sunnydale ever took state in cheerleading."

"That's…great," said Liam with a rather feeble attempt at enthusiasm. "You want to be a cheerleader like her?"

"Yeah," said Amy, "but it's just so hard! I've gotten in shape and I practice six hours a day, but I still can't get my body to _move_ like hers!" She gestured at the photo of her mom. "I choked in there so bad. They'll never let me on the squad. My mom was the best, and I'm just…nothing." Before Liam could say anything else, she had burst into tears again and fled down the hall.

"Six _hours_?!" he muttered incredulously. He couldn't fathom spending even half as much time on something as pointless as cheerleading, especially when it only seemed to be making Amy miserable anyway. He shook his head and walked away from the trophy case.

†

When school ended, Liam quickly picked up Kathy and dropped her off at home before returning for his first training session with Mr. Giles. He didn't have any homework tonight and had hit a dead end in his vampire research, so he wanted to take the opportunity to keep his new Watcher thinking everything was fine.

"How much weapons training have you done so far?" asked Mr. Giles as he rummaged around in the weapons cabinet inside the book cage.

"Not much," said Liam. "I pretty much just stick with stakes and hand-to-hand." While this was true, the real reason he hadn't done more training was that he had avoided Mr. Merrick whenever possible, feeling that he was competent enough with just stakes that any additional training from him wouldn't be worth the accompanying lectures.

"Well, then, it's probably time for you to master some new weapons. Would you mind if we started with the quarterstaff?"

"No," said Liam.

Mr. Giles then proceeded to don a full set of bulky sparring pads. "There's a set for you as well," he said while he strapped on the last piece, which was a foam helmet.

"No thanks." What was the point of protective gear when this wasn't going to be a real fight anyway? And even when it was a real fight, the demons would be much more difficult opponents than a middle-aged Englishman, and they certainly wouldn't let him call a time-out so he could put on pads.

"Very well," said Mr. Giles, tossing a rough wooden quarterstaff to Liam. "Though you may come to regret that. I've quite a lot of experience with these."

Experience, it turned out, was no match for Slayer strength and reflexes, but Liam was still interested in learning the proper forms (which soothed Mr. Giles's bruised pride a bit, if not his bruised tailbone from when Liam had knocked him flat on his back within the first twenty seconds of sparring), so they kept at it. About half an hour in, Willow and Xander turned up.

"Anything new about the incident with Miss Grove?" said Mr. Giles, lowering his staff. Liam did likewise.

"Well, we have a new suspect, if that counts," said Xander, looking at all their equipment. "What's going on in here?"

"Quarterstaff training," said Mr. Giles.

"Who's the suspect?" Liam pressed.

"Cordelia," said Willow.

"Really?" said Liam skeptically. Cordelia was a bully, certainly, but she really didn't strike him as a supernatural one. If she was, then she wouldn't have needed to use Larry to try to make him join the football team. She could have just done something herself. The thought made him shudder.

"Yeah," said Willow. "You should have seen her when the names of the new cheerleaders were posted. She made the team, but before that, she was threatening Amy and stuff because of what happened in the tryouts today."

"So you think Cordelia might have done something to put Amber out of the running in order to guarantee her spot on the squad?" said Mr. Giles, beginning to take off his pads. From his expression, he didn't understand how anyone could be that dedicated to cheerleading any more than Liam did. Maybe it was an American thing.

"It wouldn't surprise me," said Xander. "She's always been really competitive, and she was definitely feeling the heat from Amber yesterday." He snickered. "Before she was literally on fire, I mean."

"But if it is her, and she made the squad, then she's not likely to do anything else about it, is she?" said Mr. Giles.

"We should still keep an eye on her," Willow suggested. "Just in case?"

"I'll do it," said Liam with a grimace.

"You're kidding," said Xander.

"Well," said Willow, who for some reason seemed to be holding in a fit of giggles, "he did say to let him do all the dangerous stuff."

Liam glared at both of them. "Of the three of us, which one does she actually _want_ to spend time with?" he said.

Xander clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, Van Helsing, you're a braver man than I."

* * *

My favorite scene in this one is probably Willow and Xander's little memorial for Jesse. One thing that really fascinates me about writing a story like this is how, unlike Buffy, Liam doesn't seem to gather friends so much as allies. Willow and Xander are interested in helping him more because they want to be part of his cause than because they want to be his friends. Anyway, there's a chance that the next chapter will be mostly flashbacks, and you guys will finally find out the details of what happened to Mr. Merrick.


End file.
